Nouriel Roubini is the most prominent economist to warn that a double-dip recession would be a distinct possibility if economic policy-makers return to policy normalization too quickly.  Now, Stephen Roach, head of Morgan Stanley Asia, is making similar arguments. 
Roach was on Bloomberg Radio’s show Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Keene and Ken Pruitt yesterday, where [...]

Toyota, now the world’s largest automaker, has said it would halt production at a plant in Aichi prefecture in Japan, reducing total output by a massive 220,000 cars.  This should be seen as a recognition of the over-capacity tat exists in the auto sector despite other recent upbeat news.
Toyota raised its parent-only production target for [...]

This post is from Niels Jensen of Absolute Return Partners.  I have featured his monthly newsletter a number of times on Credit Writedowns (here’s the link to the last one, hilarious title).  Jensen is very good.
Visit www.arpllp.com to learn more about Absolute Return Partners and to sign up to receive their free monthly newsletter by [...]

In the lead-up to next week’s G8 summit, the Chinese have been making yet more noises about setting up a new monetary system without the dollar as its anchor and leading reserve currency.  The Chinese, who have maintained a export orientation which has made them the largest holder of U.S. government bonds, are concerned that [...]

Will Hutton has a pretty good interview with Paul Krugman in the Guardian newspaper.  The exchange is quite long, so it gives you a fairly broad understanding of Krugman’s view on the global economy and specific country economies.  What I found especially interesting was Krugman’s admission that we are essentially flying blind.
The Federal Reserve has [...]

It is not just the Chinese making noises about the reliability of the United States as a debtor.  Now, Japanese politicians are doing it too.  In fact, the Democratic Party of Japan (which is not in power) have said they would not buy U.S. bonds if elected.  An excerpt from a BBC story covering these [...]

The following is the currency outlook released today by the Brown Brothers Harriman Currency Strategy team:
Swine flu and concerns about US banks may be hitting the headlines but, the European banking sector remains a threat for the euro zone. Indeed, ECB President Trichet, speaking in NY yesterday, highlighted the fact that the European banking sector [...]

This is another post I originally ran on Naked Capitalism last month. As you know, I have turned more positive about the potential for a cyclical economic recovery. However, I am unchanged regarding much of the sentiment expressed in this post – that any upturn must be considered with suspicion because the underlying fundamentals of [...]

Yesterday, I posted an item on Naked Capitalism about the bankruptcy of Yamaichi Securities in 1996 as testament to lingering weakness in a country’s financial sector if sick financial institutions are not dealt with swiftly. In essence, the entire Japanese banking sector remained weak for years despite multiple cyclical upturns after the Bubble Economy [...]

I do believe the U.S. policy response to this financial crisis is very much like the Japanese response to their crisis in the 1990s. I have a post up at “naked capitalism” making this point. I would add, however, that America is in a worse position due to its lack of exports and [...]