A more worrying statistic was the UK trade balance for January:
Notice how closely related the poor economic news and the fall in the pound have been. Combined with all the predictions of no party winning overall control in May's general election, there is a lot of uncertainty about the UK's economic future over the rest of this year, leading this writer to ask
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/edmundconway/100004089/is-this-the-start-of-a-sterling-crisis/
However, there is slightly more optimistic news with relation to the amount of government borrowing, as reported in the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7436294/Lower-borrowing-fails-to-lift-Treasury-gloom.html
Lower than expected unemployment is an important reason for this, since it has meant government has needed less than previously calculated for benefit payments.
Nonetheless, there will still be a huge government deficit that needs to be reduced. In the run up to the Budget on March 24th, this Telegraph article forecasts no government spending cuts until after the election:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/budget/7436658/Budget-2010-Labour-to-put-off-spending-cuts-until-after-the-general-election.html
Meanwhile, a couple of interesting China related stories.
First, news about inflation that may mean a cut in AD is required:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8561381.stm
The continuing argument between the USA and China over the RMBs low dollar exchange rate is the subject of this interesting piece from the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/7436875/The-more-America-huffs-about-the-yuan-the-less-China-will-do-about-it.html
(Liam Halligan is a good writer - I recommend looking at some of his other articles).
Finally, not about economics but I bet you watch this clip more than once:
Wide outlook on UK economy, very interesting article about China and US dollar.
ReplyDeletethe video is funny and shocking at the same time, how that man could stand up after so strong hit?! ( at least it sounds it's strong)
thank you for posting this review!
Always, I like to read the comments more than I like to read the article itself. It is a great fun to see how people take different stands and argue with each other. We all have different perspectives, maybe none is perfectly correct, but is always nice to know the alternative approaches to the same issue.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing.
X Shuting