OK, not three words you’d expect to see in the same sentence. But Patrick Chovanec, who writes a very enlightening blog on China, tells us about the many social functions of the giant IKEA store on the edge of Beijing, … Continued
An article in the Financial Times today explains how domestic public opinion in China constrains the government’s ability to contribute to a Eurozone bailout, even if it wanted to. China spends about the same on health care as Greece did … Continued
The sacking of Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin yesterday might not seem very important, just another casualty of Kremlin politics. But the Peterson Institute of International Economics offers an insightful and rather depressing account of how this means Putin is … Continued
The ever excellent Peterson Institute for International Economics has a blog post today on the solution to the USA’s crumbling transport infrastructure, namely tolls. Resistance to raising taxes makes it all but impossible for the federal or state governments to … Continued
It’s nice to see the Chinese government making constructive noises about helping the Eurozone and Italy in particular, if only because I speculated about Beijing coming to the rescue earlier this year in class. I also put the idea to … Continued
Since I last blogged back in June, the flow of bad economic and financial news has turned into a torrent. Banks have shed jobs, markets have fallen, confidence in governments is even lower than before, the ECB has acrimoniously lost … Continued
I’ve been accused of writing too much about China, so apologies for more, but there is an interesting story in today’s Financial Times. Like many people, I’ve used the story about the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai replying to US President … Continued
Yesterday Google revealed a campaign to steal users’ passwords that “appeared” to originate in China. This, though denied today by the Chinese government, is hardly the first time that China has been accused of various “cyber-crimes”. All I can say … Continued
Two forces fuel the growth of financial services. First, the growth of household income leads to demand for basic banking then saving and pension products. This in turn drives the growth of commercial banks and institutional savings businesses like pension … Continued