Month: March 2016
Does the trade deficit matter?
The trade balance is getting a lot of attention in the US presidential primaries, due to Donald Trump’s anti-trade rhetoric. Trump wants trade barriers to [...]
Chinese recession is coming
For the last couple of years the talk has been of a Chinese ‘hard landing’, meaning growth dropping below the 6-8% we have witnessed the last few years. [...]
Iain Duncan Smith: politics, not economics
The resignation of Iain Duncan Smith dominates headlines, and for good reasons: the narrative that the Bullingdon Club boys in the Conservative government are [...]
Why the EU referendum is not so important after all
The general consensus among believers in free markets is that the UK should vote to leave the EU in the June referendum. And as a general principle, the chance [...]
Fed and BoE rate decisions: central bankers peddling fiction
Time flies. It is only few months back when everyone thought the Federal Reserve was going to raise US interest rates again at their March meeting. Well, it [...]
Another big government budget for the UK
George Osborne is a prudent man. Like any financially responsible person, he is aware that you need to produce before you can consume. In his own words, he [...]
More on the gender pay gap: what’s the problem?
Last week's International Women’s Day had a theme: Pledge for Parity! The problem is, you see, that women are paid less than men, and the pay gap won’t [...]
Draghi fires bazooka, misses target
So Mario Draghi today fired what was supposed to be his big bazooka of monetary stimulus, but when the markets had digested the new schemes the ECB has cooked [...]
How is the gender pay gap doing?
Today is International Women’s Day, and the papers are full of reminders that allegedly we have a way to go before achieving real equality between the [...]
The US creates more low paying jobs
US non farm payroll posted another gain in February, when the US economy added 242,000 jobs. The bad news though is that, just as last month, it is was [...]