This Great Graphic, composed on Bloomberg, shows that China’s market capitalization (white line) is greater than Japan’s (yellow line). This is the consequence of two forces. First, the Chinese stock market has...
In the middle of November, the CEO of Vodafone Vittorio Colao warned of a „prisoner’s dilemma” in the efforts to offer bundled television and broadband services. It makes sense for a company to...
For nearly a few centuries, the northern Atlantic was the center of the world economy. This era is over. It has been over for some time. Since the early 1980s, more goods cross the Pacific than the Atlantic. This is...
The issue is that many countries want to grow faster. Some structural changes are needed. Many countries are not making the most of what economists have become fond of calling „human capital”. Specifically,...
This Great Graphic was tweeted by Ian Bremmer, but it comes from Max Roser. It shows the work week, measured in hours going back to 1870 for several countries, including the US, Germany and France. The data only...
The Wall Street Journal’s Josh Zumbrun posted these twoGreat Graphics on equity ownership in the US. Economists often see the rise in equity prices having two important channels of economic impact. The first...
This Great Graphic is from the Dutch Bureau of Economic Policy Analysis (CPB), and was posted by Steve Goldstein at MarketWatch. It shows the three-month average year-over-year growth rate of global trade. The growth of...
The December Brent oil futures contract settled at $86.16 before the weekend, after having fallen to a four-year low on October 16 just below $83.00. It has lost more than 27% since the end of June, and more than half...
Many participants seem confused. Despite the talk about the dollar by different Fed officials, dollar policy is set by the US Treasury. Secretary Lew has been clear. First he reiterated the 20-year old mantra of...
Back in the late-1970s, a Democrat, Jeanne Kirkpatrick wrote an essay in Commentary Magazine critiquing President Carter’s foreign policy. She drew a distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian...