ASIA: Crisis-stricken Sri Lanka defaulted on its $51 billion external debt on Tuesday, calling the move a “last resort” after running out of foreign exchange to import desperately needed goods. Sri Lanka’s finance ministry said in a statement that creditors, including foreign governments, were free to capitalize any interest payments due to them from Tuesday […]

ASIA: China’s producer inflation for March was higher than expected. The producer price index surged 8.3% as compared with a year ago, official data showed Monday, above expectations for a 7.9% increase in a Reuters poll. Chinese consumer inflation also rose more than expected in March, with the consumer price index climbing 1.5% year-on-year. That […]

ASIA: China’s five major state-owned banks have adopted a slew of measures to ease the residential mortgage burden for individual borrowers affected by the COVID-19 epidemic.  These steps include postponing mortgage repayments, extending repayment periods, as well as deferring principal and interest repayments on housing loans, the banks told Xinhua. Bank of China has urged […]

QUESTION: Marty; Socrates is always amazing. I understand this forecast of war and Russia comes from the computer and you wish you were wrong. There is a video out there also saying the Bucha is a false flag even showing that people pretending to be dead in the streets with no blood and then when […]

China has bluntly warned that it would take strong measures if U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. They have warned that such a visit would severely impact Chinese-U.S. relations. There is a strategy here to undermine BOTH Russia and China. Their three obstacles were Trump, Putin, and Xi. Trump was removed and […]

ASIA: Indian shares fell for a third straight session on Thursday, as global sentiment soured on hawkish US Federal Reserve minutes, while investors looked forward to the Reserve Bank of India’s policy decision on Friday amid rising inflationary pressures. The NSE Nifty 50 index declined 0.6% to 17,692.70, and the S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.5% […]

ASIA: Core consumer prices in Japan’s capital rose at the fastest pace in more than two years in March, propelled by energy costs that have hit a four-decade high following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The relentless uptrend in global commodity prices could ruin Japan’s fragile recovery from the pandemic, even as domestic COVID-19 infections wane […]

ASIA: Japan cannot avoid crafting a supplementary budget for fiscal 2022 as part of measures to mitigate the impact of rising prices on the economy, former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Sunday. His successor, Fumio Kishida, is reluctant to compile an additional budget at an early date as the new fiscal year just started this […]

ASIA: Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua called on Saturday for greater efforts to stabilize foreign trade amid a complex external environment, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said in March that China’s economy faced multiple challenges at home and abroad this year, including “huge” pressure from uncertainty over global trade and […]

QUESTION: Hi Martin, What do you think banks will do with mortgages if we continue experiencing high inflation and/or hyperinflation? Do you think we might be able to pay off a mortgage with gold if things get bad enough? Marc ANSWER: No! The contract is in dollars and that cannot be altered. There won’t be […]