After Russia invaded Ukraine, the West formed what looked like an overwhelming global coalition: 141 countries supported a United Nations measure demanding that Russia unconditionally withdraw.
The West Tried to Isolate Russia. It Didn’t Work.
Tag: Central Banks
Central banks risk setting off a financial earthquake with constant rate rises, warns ex-IMF economist
“Liz Truss got the blame but the underlying cause was Jay Powell’s rate rises in the US, which has pushed up rates for everybody,” he says.
There Is No Such Thing As Wage-Driven Inflation
Few know the name of Walter Heller, one of the first Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers, and an adviser to President Kennedy. In 1968, however, he was a giant in economics who published in all the top journals. Fresh from his years in the Kennedy White House, he was invited to debate the relative importance of fiscal and monetary policy with another giant in economics, Milton Friedman, in a small book published by W.W. Norton & Company. Rarely do such debates interest more than a few thousand individuals. This is an exception, as a decade later PBS invited Heller and Friedman to debate their views on inflation.
There Is No Such Thing As Wage-Driven Inflation
Related:
Debunking: “If You Raise The Minimum Wage, It Will Cause Inflation”
Interest rate hikes leading to recession, UN says
The United Nations has added its voice to the growing list of international organisations, including the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, warning that interest rate hikes imposed by the US Federal Reserve are creating the conditions for a financial crisis and global recession.
Interest rate hikes leading to recession, UN says
Calling a recession and blaming it on interest rates
The latest US GDP figures for second quarter of 2022 renewed the debate about whether the US economy was in a recession or not. Real GDP contracted in the second quarter of this year by a 0.9% annualised rate (or by 0.2% quarter over quarter). That meant the US economy had contracted for two successive quarters, and so ‘technically’ (by that definition) was in a recession. Real GDP is now up only 1.6% from Q2 2021. And business investment is slowing, up only 3.5% from this time last year, the slowest rate since the end of the COVID slump in 2020.
Calling a recession and blaming it on interest rates
The scissors of slump
Last week, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the US Congress that “We now are entering a period of transition from one of historic recovery to one that can be marked by stable and steady growth. Making this shift is a central piece of the President’s plan to get inflation under control without sacrificing the economic gains we’ve made.”
It’s true that the US economy since the depths of the pandemic slump, (which remember in terms of national output, incomes and investment was the worst since the 1930s – even worse that the Great Recession of 2008-9) has made a recovery. But it could hardly be described as ‘historic’. And as for the claim that the US economy, the best performing of the major economies in the last year, is heading towards ‘stable and steady growth’, that is not supported by reality.
The scissors of slump
IMF Admits US Dollar Hegemony Declining, due to Rise of Chinese Yuan, Sanctions on Russia
The US-dominated International Monetary Fund warns of an “erosion of dollar dominance,” noting use of Chinese yuan in global central bank reserves is increasing, while Western sanctions on Russia could strengthen other currencies.
IMF Admits US Dollar Hegemony Declining, due to Rise of Chinese Yuan, Sanctions on Russia
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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