Hat tip Rolfe Winkler.

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The US Department of Agriculture highlights how the United States in the last decade, despite increased aggregate wealth, slid back significantly in terms of food insecurity as measure of poverty. With everyone now focused on the unemployment situation, it bears noting that even before the downturn in the economy there had been a large surge [...]

On the eve of U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to China, a major Chinese official has criticized U.S. monetary policy in unusually harsh language. Liu Mingkang, China Banking Regulatory Commission chairman said the zero interest rate policy of the U.S. Federal Reserve posed a “new systemic risk.”
Liu, using language reminiscent of warnings by NYU economist [...]

Hat tip Barry Ritholtz
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Hong Kong’s leader Donald Tsang has come out with a scathing criticism of U.S. monetary policy, comparing it to Japan’s which he believes contributed to 1997’s Asian crisis. This is the most direct and strident criticism of the U.S. Federal reserve’s monetary policy from a major international politician yet.
Bloomberg reports:
The Federal Reserve’s policy of keeping [...]

A friend sent me the following presentation earlier in the week when I was feeling a bit ill. So I neglected to post it.  But, I want to return to it because it is in keeping with my recovery/depression theme. These are the issues that were complicit in the latest financial crisis and almost none [...]

Columbia University Professor and former Federal Reserve official Frederic Mishkin wrote a much-discussed Op-Ed in the Financial Times yesterday. In it, he asks
Are potential asset-price bubbles always dangerous?

He answers this question with a no, noting that some asset bubbles are more dangerous than others because of their connection to debt and credit. I agree [...]

This article by Peter Tasker, a well-regarded financial analyst in Asia, comes via the Financial Times (hat tip Marshall). He sees an enormous bubble forming in China – and parallels to Japan circa 1987:
Emerging markets, it seems, have had a good crisis. In contrast to the debt-ridden G7 economies, they have quickly resumed their growth [...]

If you have been wondering whether a statistical recovery is at hand, today’s ISM manufacturing report should be the clincher.  The report was definitely bullish with the ISM index rising to 55.7 and sub-components supporting the understanding that the manufacturing sector is expanding. This is quite a contrast to last month’s weak data and demonstrates [...]

Former Morgan Stanley economist Andy Xie joins other famed prognosticators like Nouriel Roubini in worrying about an incipient asset bubble. The Rosetta Stone Advisors board member sees the huge increase in money supply created by central banks as fuel to an asset bubble fire. He even goes so far as to call the central banks [...]