One of the big themes my colleagues and I have flagged up since late 2007 is the eventual rebalancing of the United States’ external accounts. There are several reasons – both domestic and external – why we believe the US current account deficit will continue to narrow over the coming years. We list these below,… [Read more]
As the US gears up for general elections in 2012, there is a widespread perception that the country’s economic weakness since 2008, the rise of China, the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, have all eroded American global hegemony. Although the US’ ability and… [Read more]
It is hard to be upbeat towards Western economies right now, with so much bad data coming out of the US, and the eurozone struggling to hold itself together. Indeed, people could be forgiven for thinking that the West is down and out. However, this could be premature. One of the charts that has intrigued… [Read more]
In Business Monitor Online today, my colleagues and I discuss which countries in Latin America and Africa are most vulnerable to a renewed global slowdown emanating from the US and Europe, and the transmission mechanisms that would affect the two regions. Although the impact of a US-European slowdown on Latin America would be severe, we… [Read more]
Mark Schaltuper, Head of Europe Country Risk and Financial Markets, and Tim Cooper, Chief Economic Strategist, come together to discuss Business Monitor’s latest Special Report titled “Market Meltdown: Global Economy On The Edge”. With the US reeling from debt concerns after losing its AAA credit rating, the eurozone dogged by the ongoing sovereign debt crises,… [Read more]
In Business Monitor Online today, we carry two special features on Standard and Poor’s (S&P)’s downgrade of the United States’ credit rating to AA+ on August 5. In the first article, we answer the following questions: Why has the US credit rating been downgraded? What does it mean to be rated AA+ rather than AAA?… [Read more]
Risk assets plummeted on August 4 and 5, with the path forward very much dependent upon whether eurozone policymakers get serious about saving the single-currency monster they have created. On August 4, a seemingly non-chalant ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet casually brushed aside questions over whether ECB bond market purchases would be stepped up to alleviate… [Read more]
