Post Tagged with: "Russia"
Water, Wheat and Russia
In a time when there is much discussion of peak oil and the idea that other commodities are less abundant or more costly to access, one issue that might not get enough attention among investors is the shortage of water. Some political scientists, for example, have suggested that the next war in the Middle East may be over water not oil
Putin says dollar hegemony ‘dangerous’ and calls for Russian-EU economic trade zone
The under-current from Putin’s remarks has much to do with anti-US Dollar sentiment because he said specifically that having the U.S. dollar as the sole reserve currency “is definitely something negative.” Putin is serious about ditching the dollar. But will this gain any traction
Are the BRICs decoupling?
We have heard this de-coupling theme for quite a few years now. The theory is that high-growth emerging markets are becoming less reliant on the U.S. and therefore are immune to exogenous shocks from the U.S. The video from Russia Today TV below explores this topic. I spoke to RT America for this segment and
Euro as Reserve and Invoicing Currency
A news wire is reporting that Russia remains committed to diversifying its reserves and has not changed its view of the euro. This is consistent with what several other central banks, including China, Japan and South Korea have indicated recently. That said, Russian data out in the middle of last month showed an increase in
Can external pressure precipitate change in a command economy like China?
I am going to talk here a little bit about the looming trade war between China and the United States. But I am going to come at it from a side angle via some historical analogies. Common folklore in the United States says that the Soviet Empire collapsed in large part due to the efforts
Links: 2010-03-11 – Sovereign debt explosion, Russian Eurobonds and more
FT.com – Spain has the means to avoid Greece’s fate FT.com – Mohamed El-Erian – How to handle the sovereign debt explosion BofA under regulatory pressure to shrink: report| Reuters Second Lien Writedowns, II « Rortybomb Discouraged older job seekers give up, calling themselves retired – MSN Money Chase Returns Retired Teacher’s Stolen $6,200 –
Iceland Referendum — New Risks, Old Story
Officials have been trying to come up with some way to avoid the weekend referendum in Iceland but it looks likely those efforts have been in vain. Polls show that nearly three-quarters of the Iceland voters will reject the deal that parliament had approved that would pay the UK and the Netherlands 3.9 bln euros
A Way Out (?)
The following is a post by Marc Chandler, head of Brown Brother Harriman’s Currency Strategy Team. For more of BBH’s currency views, visit the website here. We have argued that the EU faces a horrible dilemma. One horn is the moral hazard inherent in support for a profligate agent, while not necessarily putting a firewall
The Russia Forum 2010: Hendry, Faber and Taleb
The following link goes to an hour-long video from the Russia Forum 2010 featuring famed investors and market watchers Hugh Hendry and Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Marc Faber was the moderator. The session is “Investments: Where is the Money in 2010 – What are the Risks?" from the second-day of the three day forum.
Byron Wien: Ten Surprises for 2007 and 2008
Given the fact that I have just finished writing two articles on Wien’s predictions for 2010, I thought it relevant to look back at the last three years of Wien’s surprises to just before the housing crisis. I posted the 2009 predictions last year. The post is here. Wien calls these events that he gives
Chinese tariffs of up to 25 percent on Russian and American steel
This comes via Reuters: China’s announcement on Thursday it would slap punitive tariffs on a type of electrical steel used in transformers is likely to hurt exports from leading U.S. producers AK Steel and ATI Allegheny Ludlum. The move follows U.S. steel industry trade cases against China that led Beijing to accuse Washington of protectionism.
Russia, sovereign debt defaults, and fiat currency
I have said on a number of occasions that a sovereign nation that issues debt in its own fiat currency cannot default involuntarily. The case most people point to as a counterfactual is Russia in 1998. I mentioned Russia in a recent post: Countries that have gone bust, Russia, Mexico, and Argentina were borrowing in