At last, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has begun speaking independently as he departs from the Biden agenda. Former President Trump and Powell notoriously clashed over interest rates, and we heard time and time again that the central bank was independent of government rule. Once Biden entered the White House, Powell seemed to be more […]

ASIA: India and Israel agreed to resume talks on a free trade agreement from November, with the aim of signing a deal by mid-2022, both countries said on Monday. Ties between the two countries have grown closer in the seven years since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been in power. Several strategic military and […]

Once “we get the pandemic under control, the global economy comes back, these pressures will mitigate and I believe will go back to normal levels,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated, echoing “transitory” sentiments by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Powell believes supply chain bottlenecks are the main culprit for inflation. Well, the Biden Administration appointed the […]

Inflation continued to surge, reaching 5.4% in September. Janet Yellen has never been right about anything and keeps calling this “transitory,” as if it will vanish in a few weeks. The Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index, which is supposed to measure a basket of goods and services as well as energy and food costs, came […]

ASIA: Goldman Sachs cut China’s growth forecast to 7.8 percent this year from the previously estimated 8.2 percent, as the world’s second largest economy faces “yet another growth shock” in the form of constraints on energy consumption. The country is already battling to save Evergrande amid fears that Chinese property behemoth could turn out into […]

ASIA: China’s ambitious foreign infrastructure push has saddled poor nations with “hidden debt” worth $385 billion, and more than a third of the projects have been hit by alleged corruption scandals and protests, a study said Wednesday. Research from international development research lab AidData said that opaque deals with state banks and companies under President […]

ASIA: China remained on course to be more than 30% short of its 2021 commitments under the phase one trade deal with the United States with four months left, according to the latest analysis of trade data between the world’s two largest economies. The phase one trade deal outlined in the agreement mention that China […]

ASIA: Japan’s economy grew faster than initially estimated in the April-June quarter, helped by solid capital expenditure, although a resurgence in COVID-19 is undermining service-sector consumption and clouding the outlook. Revised gross domestic product (GDP) data by the Cabinet Office released on Wednesday showed the economy grew an annualized 1.9% in April-June, beating economists’ median […]

ASIA: BNP Paribas’ asset management arm is in talks to form a wealth management venture with a unit of Agricultural Bank of China (AgBank), as the French firm pursues a bigger slice of China’s $19 trillion market, Reuters reported. China further deregulated its financial markets in 2019, allowing foreign asset managers to form majority-owned wealth […]

ASIA: Singapore will reopen their borders to some travelers from Germany, Hong Kong, Macao, and Brunei as soon as August 26. Transport Minister S. Iswaran stressed that Singapore’s “connectivity with the rest of the world is essential, if not existential.” The nation has already opened borders to travelers from China, New Zealand, and Taiwan, but […]