ASIA: Japanese retail sales rose at the fastest pace in five months in March as consumer demand recovered from the huge hit it took from the coronavirus pandemic last year. The world’s third-largest economy has emerged from last year’s slump on an export recovery, though a glacial vaccine rollout and a resurgence in infections […]

ASIA: China’s economic indicators for the first quarter of 2021 have been released. At an annualized rate, the economy grew 18.3% from January through to April, facilitating a complete economic recovery as the world deals with the disruption of COVID-19, and consumption reasserts itself, registering the highest tally since 1993. In line with the GDP […]

Roberto Speranza is the Italian politician of the Chamber of Deputies who served as national secretary of Article One. He also served as the Minister of Health since 2019 under the government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and was later confirmed by Prime Minister Mario Draghi. During his tenure, he was in charge of the […]

ASIA: According to a study, some 75% of the world’s bitcoin mining is done in China. The reason given for this in the report is cheap electricity and relatively easy access to manufacturers who make specialized hardware. As a result, the nation’s bitcoin carbon footprint is as big as one of its ten largest cities, […]

QUESTION: Hello Martin, can you explain to me how a currency would sustain value for international trade if a country, like Canada (where I live), did what you suggested and stopped issuing debt and just printed money to level that was 5% – 10% of national GDP? would it depend on the attractiveness of what […]

COMMENT: Hi Marty, Your post today on inflation(when people see it coming) reminds me how things have changed from the 1970s. Then, the inflation we saw came from oil rising(Opec raising prices), unions demanding wage increases, and currencies untethered to the abandoned Bretton Woods agreement. Governments then seemed clueless how to stem this rise, with interest […]

There is an enigmatic power which is the true Mysterious Force of Synchronization which exists in everything within the universe from electronics,  biology, all the way to planetary movement. This mysterious force is known to engineers and even the military. In 1831, there was a rather interesting collapse of the Broughton Suspension Bridge in Manchester, […]

ASIA: Chinese government bonds will be added to the FTSE World Government Bond Index (WGBI) over three years from the end of October, FTSE Russell said in a statement. Chinese government bonds were previously included in index suites from JPMorgan and Bloomberg Barclays, but FTSE WGBI inclusion is expected to have a larger effect due […]

ASIA: Chinese officials on Monday said Sweden’s H&M and other foreign brands should not make rash moves or step into politics after the companies raised concerns about forced labor in Xinjiang, sparking a furious online backlash and boycotts. H&M, Burberry, Nike, Adidas, and other Western brands have been hit by consumer boycotts in China since […]

While central banks are hard at work trying to come up with the magic bullet to kill cash and avoid having to bail out bankers again, they are faced with what has been termed the “Paradox of Cash,” whereby the demand rises in the face of declining use of cash in normal transactions. In Europe, […]