21 March 2019 At its March meeting, the US Federal Reserve signaled it would keep interest rates unchanged in 2019. In a similar fashion, the European Central Bank (ECB) at its recent gathering signaled interest rate hikes will be delayed until next year, and additional monetary support was forthcoming. But, that's not the end of [...]
6 March 2019 Following the BJP's dramatic 2014 electoral victory, Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoyed a mandate to implement economic reform. From the beginning, however, the program faced criticism. On the one hand, Hindu nationalist believe the changes do not go far enough in promoting their interests, whereas non-Hindus charge the benefits have not been [...]
23 January 2019 One of the unintended, albeit unsurprising, consequences of the current period of ultra-loose monetary conditions has been the extraordinary buildup in debt worldwide. The top Chart illustrates that during the previous business cycle global debt had remained stable at what seemed an elevated level of 80% of GDP. In the aftermath of [...]
10 January 2019 Happy New Year! I am back at work for the first time since releasing my blog in mid-December. Did I miss anything??!! In a word, it's been crazy! In September, we published our 2019 Global Strategy Outlook entitled "Turning (Even More) Defensive", in which we warned that the year ahead would be [...]