Economic News

Leer en Español From currency peg to currency band: Until 2005, China’s renminbi was pegged at CNY 8.3 per USD. From that moment on the government shifted to a managed float, allowing the currency to move within 2% of a daily rate set by China’s central bank, the PBOC. This change led the renminbi to depreciate by around a quarter over the decade that followed—a consequence of China’s massive trade surplus. Afterwards, from the mid-2010s to 2022, the currency further lost value as investors soured on China’s economy and the PBOC reduced its intervention in the FX market. Over the last two years, however, the currency has been broadly stable, largely as the PBOC has itself set a fairly stable exchange rate in order to limit depreciatory pressures. As a result, the renminbi has recently traded more like a currency that’s de facto pegged in a narrow trading band.  Renminbi internationalization still in the early stages: The Chinese government is making an effort to boost the attractiveness of the renminbi overseas. A decade ago the authorities introduced the cross-border international payment system (CIPS) as an alternative to the U.S.-dominated SWIFT system. Beijing has signed renminbi swap lines with dozens of foreign central banks, and pushed to settle more of its own trade in domestic currency. However, the renminbi still accounts for just 2% of international currency usage, compared to over 50% for the U.S. dollar. Restrictions on the exchange rate—which as mentioned have increased in the last couple of years—plus capital controls and concerns over sudden shifts in policymaking are likely to preclude the CNY from unseating the USD as the world reserve currency any time soon.  Our panelists’ forecasts for the exchange rate: The Consensus of the 50+ panelists we poll is for China’s renminbi to gradually appreciate over the coming years, and to move back below CNY 7.0 per USD by the end of the decade; monetary easing by the Federal Reserve will narrow the interest rate gap between the U.S. and China. However, any moves in the exchange rate are likely to be gradual, given the government’s focus on preserving stability above all else.   Insight from our panelists:  On the short-term outlook for the currency, Goldman Sachs analysts said:  “CNY continues to screen as significantly undervalued, with the degree of undervaluation now comparable again to the period of the China shock in the mid-2000s. While there is always substantial uncertainty around FX fair value metrics, recent economic performance—large export market share gains and a surge in the current account surplus—help corroborate these model estimates.”   On the outlook for renminbi internationalization, EIU analysts said:   “China will promote the use of the renminbi as a reliable international currency, at a time when confidence in the US dollar is eroded by Mr Trump’s policies. The outlook for reniminbi internationalisation is mixed, however. China could commit a greater amount of overseas aid and loans, along with other forms of support (including in supply chains), in exchange for the expansion of the renminbi’s role in global settlement and financing, as well as a reserve currency. Nevertheless, despite the growing percentage of the renminbi in trade settlement, the currency continues to make up less than 2% of global trade invoicing—suggesting limited (albeit growing) uptake in international trade. The renminbi will not emerge as a credible substitute to the US dollar in the medium term.” Our latest analysis:  New Zealand’s central bank slashed interest rates in October.  Germany’s industrial production slumped in August.  The post How will China’s currency fare in the coming years?  appeared first on FocusEconomics.

Erik Loomis What drives Trump’s politics is nostalgia for the age of coal, when dirty fuel and no environmental regulations created his version of a great America. The post The Rise, Reign, and Fall of American Coal appeared first on The Nation.

At min 0:29 of this clip from FoxBusiness: I suspect Antoni views these predictions as “suspicious” only because they run counter to his priors. Remember this is the guy who looked at the import price index, and concluded tariffs hadn’t raised prices facing American households and firms, forgetting that the import price index doesn’t include tariffs… In any event, Antoni takes issue with the 55% tariff pass through to consumers, saying that none of the apocalyptic price increases had yet shown up. I would say (as a person who actually took a PhD field exam in international economics) that there is actually substantial evidence of price increases to consumers, especially once one takes into account the timing of actually implemented tariffs (remember all those “pauses”), and the time taken for pass through to occur. Regarding actual effective tariff rates, vs. Trump-declared tariff rates, we can show the disjuncture: Figure 1: Average effective tariff rate (blue), and average declared tariff rate (tan), both in %. Source: OECD Interim Economic Outlook, Paweł Skrzypczyński. The “effective” tariff rate shown above is calculated by dividing tariff revenue by imports. The relevant effective tariff rate only took off to around May, to 8.3%, while the Trump-declared tariff rate was much higher, much earlier. I think we can expect to see much higher effects once price data is reported again.      

We’re officially one month away from the 2025 World Economic Conference — the most anticipated economic event of the year! This year’s conference promises to be unlike any before. With markets in flux, debt spiraling, and geopolitical tensions rising, understanding the global economy has never been more critical. At the WEC, you’ll gain exclusive insight into Martin Armstrong’s Economic Confidence Model (ECM) — the same model that has accurately forecasted turning points for decades. Why Attend? Exclusive economic forecasts from Martin Armstrong Deep insight into the ECM, the world’s most accurate long-term cyclical model Forecasts on capital flows, inflation, debt, and geopolitics shaping 2025 and beyond Network with attendees from over 30 countries, including investors, policymakers, and entrepreneurs “You don’t have to agree with me — just follow the model. It’s never been wrong.” – Martin Armstrong Seats are filling fast, and this is your opportunity to hear directly from the man whose models have guided governments, institutions, and investors through decades of global change. Reserve your spot today — visit the Events page to secure your ticket before it’s too late. In-person tickets are extremely limited and likely to sell out. And don’t miss the next Marty and Mike Podcast dropping this Friday where Martin and Mike dive into the latest market shifts and what to expect heading into the conference. The World According to Martin Armstrong is also available on Amazon for those interested in reviewing the major predictions on the Economic Confidence Model and the full story behind 20 predictions that came to fruition: Dow 40,000 (Predicted: Dec 2019 / Verified: May 2024) Trump’s 2016 win (Predicted: Aug 2015) Brexit (Predicted: 2015) The COVID crash (ECM turning point: Feb 21, 2020) The rise of populism, crypto, and civil unrest The collapse of trust in government and media The war cycle peaking into 2024-2025 Sovereign debt crisis beginning 2023 The downfall of woke corporations The failure of negative interest rates The countdown has begun — the world is changing, and the insights you gain at the 2025 WEC could make all the difference. We hope to see you there!

Leer en Español From currency peg to currency band: Until 2005, China’s renminbi was pegged at CNY 8.3 per USD. From that moment on the government shifted to a managed float, allowing the currency to move within 2% of a daily rate set by China’s central bank, the PBOC. This change led the renminbi to depreciate by around a quarter over the decade that followed—a consequence of China’s massive trade surplus. Afterwards, from the mid-2010s to 2022, the currency further lost value as investors soured on China’s economy and the PBOC reduced its intervention in the FX market. Over the last two years, however, the currency has been broadly stable, largely as the PBOC has itself set a fairly stable exchange rate in order to limit depreciatory pressures. As a result, the renminbi has recently traded more like a currency that’s de facto pegged in a narrow trading band.  Renminbi internationalization still in the early stages: The Chinese government is making an effort to boost the attractiveness of the renminbi overseas. A decade ago the authorities introduced the cross-border international payment system (CIPS) as an alternative to the U.S.-dominated SWIFT system. Beijing has signed renminbi swap lines with dozens of foreign central banks, and pushed to settle more of its own trade in domestic currency. However, the renminbi still accounts for just 2% of international currency usage, compared to over 50% for the U.S. dollar. Restrictions on the exchange rate—which as mentioned have increased in the last couple of years—plus capital controls and concerns over sudden shifts in policymaking are likely to preclude the CNY from unseating the USD as the world reserve currency any time soon.  Our panelists’ forecasts for the exchange rate: The Consensus of the 50+ panelists we poll is for China’s renminbi to gradually appreciate over the coming years, and to move back below CNY 7.0 per USD by the end of the decade; monetary easing by the Federal Reserve will narrow the interest rate gap between the U.S. and China. However, any moves in the exchange rate are likely to be gradual, given the government’s focus on preserving stability above all else.   Insight from our panelists:  On the short-term outlook for the currency, Goldman Sachs analysts said:  “CNY continues to screen as significantly undervalued, with the degree of undervaluation now comparable again to the period of the China shock in the mid-2000s. While there is always substantial uncertainty around FX fair value metrics, recent economic performance—large export market share gains and a surge in the current account surplus—help corroborate these model estimates.”   On the outlook for renminbi internationalization, EIU analysts said:   “China will promote the use of the renminbi as a reliable international currency, at a time when confidence in the US dollar is eroded by Mr Trump’s policies. The outlook for reniminbi internationalisation is mixed, however. China could commit a greater amount of overseas aid and loans, along with other forms of support (including in supply chains), in exchange for the expansion of the renminbi’s role in global settlement and financing, as well as a reserve currency. Nevertheless, despite the growing percentage of the renminbi in trade settlement, the currency continues to make up less than 2% of global trade invoicing—suggesting limited (albeit growing) uptake in international trade. The renminbi will not emerge as a credible substitute to the US dollar in the medium term.” Our latest analysis:  New Zealand’s central bank slashed interest rates in October.  Germany’s industrial production slumped in August.  The post How will China’s currency fare in the coming years?  appeared first on FocusEconomics.

Mark Kaplan Prevent this. The post Fighting To appeared first on The Nation.

Tomorrow, we’ll get another piece of business cycle information, in the form of industrial production, manufacturing production, and capacity utilization [correction: no G.17 release h/t Paweł Skrzypczyński ]. Figure 1: Private nonfarm payroll employment – ADP (blue), civilian employment, 3 month centered moving average, smoothed population controls (teal), and industrial production (tan), and Bloomberg consensus (brown square), all in logs 2025M01=0. source: ADP, BLS, Federal Reserve via FRED, and author’s calculations. Civilian employment is not actually an observable during the shutdown, but the other two are. I include it for reference. With current betting on a 40 day shutdown, the next key indicator for release is probably the DP report.

Those who think that Israel is guilty of genocide as if that is something unique to the Middle East, are obviously blind to the the entire region of the Balkans and Ukraine. This is the motherland of ethnic cleansing and genocide that the Western Press is paid to ignore. Trying to achieve peace in the Balkans may be more difficult than getting it to snow in Hell. The Balkans’ ethnic tensions stem from a mix of historical, political, and cultural factors that have compounded over centuries. Ukraine may not be in the Balkans and is technically part of Eastern Europe, the same ethnic hatreds that dominate the Balkans including ethnical cleansing is part of the dark side of Ukraine that cannot be ignored if we hope to even attempt to craft peace moving forward. The Ustaša regime, officially known as the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH), was a fascist puppet state established during World War II, from 1941 to 1945, under the control of the Ustaša movement. Led by Ante Pavelić, the regime was aligned with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and ruled over parts of modern-day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. The Ustaša was a Croatian ultranationalist and fascist organization founded in 1929, with a violent ideology centered on creating an ethnically “pure” Croatian state. When Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941, the Ustaša was installed by Germany and Italy to govern the NDH. Stepan Andriyovych Bandera  (1909–1959), the hero of Ukraine, adopted the exact same policies of killing anyone who was of not Ukrainian blood to achieve the exact same result – a purged national state of pure-blooded Ukrainians the same as Adolf Hitler. The Ukrainian National Hero was far worse than anything out of Israel. Bandera carried out genocide against the Polish, and US intelligence protected him. The NY Times showed the Ukrainian Nazis executing a woman and throwing her child in the pit alive to die along side his mother because they were ethnic Jews. There are documented accounts of cutting babies out of the womb and sewing in a live cat that even horrified the German Nazis. It is embarrassing to be on the wrong side of history all because the Neocons, bloodthirsty vampires themselves, harbor this same ethnic cleansing for Russians inherited from Bandera. Bandera’s legacy remains polarizing: revered by some Ukrainian nationalists as a freedom fighter, condemned by others (especially in Poland, Russia, and Jewish communities) as a fascist and war criminal. After WWII, the Soviets repeatedly demanded Bandera’s extradition as a war criminal. The U.S. Army’s Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) refused, hiding his location in the American occupation zone of Germany. This allowed Bandera to operate freely in Munich for 15 years, plotting anti-Soviet actions. While not a CIA operation (the CIA formed in 1947), it set the stage for Cold War intelligence use of Ukrainian nationalists. As long as Bandera hated Russians, it did not matter how many hundreds of thousands of Jews he exterminated, all of his crimes were forgiven only because he was killing Russians as well. The US continued to support the very policies of Adolf Hitler, they just focused on Russians instead of Jews.  

Leer en Español From currency peg to currency band: Until 2005, China’s renminbi was pegged at CNY 8.3 per USD. From that moment on the government shifted to a managed float, allowing the currency to move within 2% of a daily rate set by China’s central bank, the PBOC. This change led the renminbi to depreciate by around a quarter over the decade that followed—a consequence of China’s massive trade surplus. Afterwards, from the mid-2010s to 2022, the currency further lost value as investors soured on China’s economy and the PBOC reduced its intervention in the FX market. Over the last two years, however, the currency has been broadly stable, largely as the PBOC has itself set a fairly stable exchange rate in order to limit depreciatory pressures. As a result, the renminbi has recently traded more like a currency that’s de facto pegged in a narrow trading band.  Renminbi internationalization still in the early stages: The Chinese government is making an effort to boost the attractiveness of the renminbi overseas. A decade ago the authorities introduced the cross-border international payment system (CIPS) as an alternative to the U.S.-dominated SWIFT system. Beijing has signed renminbi swap lines with dozens of foreign central banks, and pushed to settle more of its own trade in domestic currency. However, the renminbi still accounts for just 2% of international currency usage, compared to over 50% for the U.S. dollar. Restrictions on the exchange rate—which as mentioned have increased in the last couple of years—plus capital controls and concerns over sudden shifts in policymaking are likely to preclude the CNY from unseating the USD as the world reserve currency any time soon.  Our panelists’ forecasts for the exchange rate: The Consensus of the 50+ panelists we poll is for China’s renminbi to gradually appreciate over the coming years, and to move back below CNY 7.0 per USD by the end of the decade; monetary easing by the Federal Reserve will narrow the interest rate gap between the U.S. and China. However, any moves in the exchange rate are likely to be gradual, given the government’s focus on preserving stability above all else.   Insight from our panelists:  On the short-term outlook for the currency, Goldman Sachs analysts said:  “CNY continues to screen as significantly undervalued, with the degree of undervaluation now comparable again to the period of the China shock in the mid-2000s. While there is always substantial uncertainty around FX fair value metrics, recent economic performance—large export market share gains and a surge in the current account surplus—help corroborate these model estimates.”   On the outlook for renminbi internationalization, EIU analysts said:   “China will promote the use of the renminbi as a reliable international currency, at a time when confidence in the US dollar is eroded by Mr Trump’s policies. The outlook for reniminbi internationalisation is mixed, however. China could commit a greater amount of overseas aid and loans, along with other forms of support (including in supply chains), in exchange for the expansion of the renminbi’s role in global settlement and financing, as well as a reserve currency. Nevertheless, despite the growing percentage of the renminbi in trade settlement, the currency continues to make up less than 2% of global trade invoicing—suggesting limited (albeit growing) uptake in international trade. The renminbi will not emerge as a credible substitute to the US dollar in the medium term.” Our latest analysis:  New Zealand’s central bank slashed interest rates in October.  Germany’s industrial production slumped in August.  The post How will China’s currency fare in the coming years?  appeared first on FocusEconomics.

  Zelensky said Friday that Ukraine will swap “thousands” of its drones to the U.S. in a deal for U.S.-made long-range missiles, which are typically launched from submarines and warships. Trump said Friday the U.S. is interested in Kiev’s drones and complimented Ukraine on its production of unmanned aircraft. However, sources have confirmed that Zelensky is NOT interested in peace, and Ukrainians hate Russians, and this is a systemic problem. The hatred of ethnic groups in the Balkans is legendary. Handing Zelensky Tomahawks will start World War III, and Russia would be entirely justified in outright nuking Kiev or handing similar weapons to both Iran and Venezuela. Handing Zelensky such weapons when he has openly threatened to destroy the Kremlin is like giving Hitler a nuclear bomb before anyone else. These Tomahawks can fly at high subsonic speeds and at low heights to evade radars, which would equip Ukraine with the increased range and capability to eradicate the Kremlin. The Neocons selected Ukraine because of their historic ethnic cleansing. The Ukrainian torture of Jews even horrified the German Nazis. The declassified documents showed the CIA protected them from prosecution because they were also killing Russians. You do not hand a psychopath a loaded gun. I am sorry, I have ZERO sympathy for Ukraine’s leadership, the EU leadership, NATO, or our Neocons. They are all sick people who will NEVER live in peace. We are fools for thinking you can negotiate with these people. Honor the Minsk Agreements, and there would never have been a war. The EU and Ukraine are not trustworthy. They signed the Minsk Agreement to buy time and never intended to allow the people to vote on their future.   https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Zelensky-Calls-for-Nuclear-War.mp4