The US economy is faltering, at least a bit, on the back of the troubled housing market.   Uncertainty surrounding the value of debts backed by subprime US mortgages has created more than a bit of tu…

The Economist cover jinx strikes.  After the Economist’s cover story extolling how Chinese growth no longer depends heavily on exports, the contribution of (net) exports to Chinese growth has done no…

Count me among those who were surprised by the size of the fall in the q4 current account deficit.  I was expecting a fall, but not as big a fall as the BEA reported this morning.The q4 deficit came …

It seems to me that there are at least three big stories in the US trade data, maybe four or five ...The first is that US exports grew quite strongly in 2006.  And goods exports outperformed services…

That, more or less, is the conclusion of “portfolio balance” models of global capital flows.    The dollar tanks.   Its share of your portfolio falls.   So sell euros (or RMB) and buy dollars to keep…