Asia’s economies are set to slow sharply in 2009, and this could lead to serious job losses, with potential political and social consequences. Although unemployment in Asia is lower than in most developed states, this comparison is not so relevant, since Asia has become accustomed to its own lower benchmarks.

Here are my thoughts on [Read more...]

As economic activity continues to cool in China, my thoughts are increasingly turning to the potential social fallout of waning growth. Reduced demand from China’s key export markets is having a significant impact on manufacturing activity, leading to the closure of factories and consequently, rising unemployment. Indeed, it has been reported that more than 60,000 [Read more...]

Hate to plod on the US recession theme, but today’s highly anticipated employment figures for August cast such a stink that I couldn’t keep well away. Non-farm payrolls dropped by 84,000 (consensus: 75,000), and worse, the previous two months were revised down by a sum of 58,000. There will surely be more revisions, but I [Read more...]

Although everyone is talking about inflation right now, when we look at developed markets, we see reason to believe that 2009 in fact heralds a period of deflation. After all, when you strip out oil and food prices, there is not much inflation around. For example, core inflation in the US has remained steady at [Read more...]