What a difference about 170 years makes. Before the outbreak of the First Opium War in 1839, between Europe and China the British ran chronic trade deficits with China. Chinese tea for export to Britain had to be paid for with silver. To stem the outflow of silver from London to Beijing, the Brits hit upon selling opium from India to the Chinese.
October 31st, 2011 | Dan Denning | 2 comments | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "Europe"
European Failout
It doesn’t mean you can’t get a rally from here. But worries about debt default in Europe just won’t go away. Credit default swaps on sovereign Greek debt blew out to all time highs in European trading overnight. That means the cost of insuring Greek government debt from default has never been higher.
June 25th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 5 comments | Continued
China is Outpacing Europe and the US but its Economy is a Bubble
Will it blow up? Again, most likely, yes. In fact, it seems to be blowing up right now. After leading the world in the bounce phase, it now may be leading the world in a return of the Great Correction.
May 19th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 72 comments | Continued
Europe, Greece and a French Blonde
We see it coming too. We’ve already seen what happens when a small country runs up too much debt. Investors get worried. Interest rates rise. The country can no longer borrow to cover its deficits…or to pay its past loans. Disaster.
May 14th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
The Problem of Knowledge
The world is complicated enough. Europe’s sovereign debt crisis will eventually migrate its way to America and the super cycle in fiat money will end in either a debt deflation or massive inflation or both. Real wealth will be destroyed. Meanwhile, China faces a property and credit bubble of its own.
May 14th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 21 comments | Continued
Money for Nothing
The question begging itself here, of course, is how Europe intends to come up with roughly a trillion in bailout money. Sell Portugal to China? Cut Greece up into bait and catch whatever fish are left in the Mediterranean Sea? Frankly, I’m stumped. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul…
May 12th, 2010 | James Howard Kunstler | 16 comments | Continued
IOUSA and IOEU
Europeans live well. And thanks to so many transfer payments and so many government-provided services, they live well without really having much money to spend. Their incomes go to pay taxes and social charges. Trouble is, they enjoy a standard of living that they can’t really afford.
May 12th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
The Lies That Bind…
This is supposed to be a recovery. Everyone thinks it’s a recovery. All the papers say so. Investors are betting on it. Politicians and economists are congratulating themselves for it. The only trouble is, the things that need to recover so that there can be a genuine recovery are not recovering.
May 5th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 5 comments | Continued
To Trade the Resources Rent Tax or Not?
Let’s leave off with the underlying economic debate about the resource rent tax and talk about the market. It’s getting shellacked. Our colleagues Kris Sayce and Alex Cowie are finding many of the positions they’ve recommend in their publications since the March lows are declining and hitting suggested trailing stop levels.
May 5th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 5 comments | Continued
The Euro is a Symptom of Centralisation
But whether he’s right about Greece or not remains to be seen. Stock markets are meandering through February as if no clear signal about the pending sovereign debt crisis has been issued. Everyone seems to believe – assuming they are thinking at all – that Europe will get its fiscal house in order…
February 23rd, 2010 | Dan Denning | 1 comment | Continued
Rich Blamed for Financial Debacle of Last Few Years
Their governments all have in it for them…taxes on ‘the rich’ are rising. The Democrats are talking about financing the entire nation’s health care system on the backs of the super-rich.
August 26th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 4 comments | Continued
If the Economy is Not Recovering It Isn’t Getting Enough Stimulus
But the big story? Stimulus!
Here is the International Herald Tribune on Monday:
“More Stimulus is Needed to Spark a Strong Recovery,” is the headline. According to the IHT, stimulus is working. And it will work even better if there were more of it.
August 10th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 7 comments | Continued
On the Evidence, Stimulus Programs Aren’t Working
For proof, we go to Stimulation Nation itself. From America last week came news that new house sales had finally turned up. They were up 11% in June, according to the papers. That was the monthly figure. According to the annual numbers, they were down 21% from the year before…
August 3rd, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
Cold in July
“Everybody thinks it is so cold in Canada. But it’s much hotter there than it is here. A lot of houses in Ottawa have air conditioning. Here, almost no one has it. And I guess they don’t need it.”
July 13th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
The Ox-carts Could Be With Us For Years
“This is a wonderful country. It is so interesting…and so pretty in many ways…and so ugly in others. There is trash all over the place. And the kind of houses most people put up are unsightly hovels. But I suppose we should thank the Sandinistas for making the place so picturesque.
March 2nd, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 1 comment | Continued
