This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.
• Andy Xie (China International Business): A change of mindset, March 5, 2010.
The biggest policy debate this year has thus far been when and how fast to exit from last year’s stimulus policies. Last year, in a moment of panic over the global financial crisis, central banks and governments poured monetary and fiscal stimulus into the global economy. The side effects of these misguided policies are already showing up: asset speculation has engulfed the global financial market again and consumer price inflation is creeping up uncomfortably fast, especially in emerging economies. Despite the visible need for tightening, the consensus is demanding a slow and delayed exit. Reform, not stimulus, is the solution. Only by limiting financial speculation can the foundations be laid for a healthy recovery, and to prevent another crisis.
• Floyd Norris (The New York Times): After jerky swings, the economy begins to look nice and boring, March 5, 2010.
A deep recession and the credit crisis led to extraordinary falls in the American economy and perhaps even greater disruptions in financial markets. Now, both economic and market indicators have returned to what Warren G. Harding called “normalcy” when he was elected president in 1920, after the end of World War I and a subsequent recession.
• John Mauldin (Thoughts from the Frontline via Investors Insight), Welcome to the future, March 6, 2010.
• Gillian Tett (Financial Times): There are reasons to be cheerful about UK gilts, March 5, 2010.
Beneath the surface, tensions are rising in London – at least in the mind of many investors. Six weeks ago, Bill Gross of Pimco dubbed the gilt market a bed of “nitroglycerine”, and warned that Britain’s “high debt” and “the potential to devalue its currency” meant that investors should keep away.
