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The United States: Orders for automobiles declined last month.
US banks have tightened lending standards in autos and credit cards this quarter, which will weigh on consumers’ ability to spend.
Small banks have been selling high-yielding jumbo CDs to compensate for deposit losses.
Europe: Goldman sees further credit tightening ahead for Europe.
Asia – Pacific: Singapore’s industrial production is down sharply on a year-over-year basis.
China grants billions in bailouts as Belt and Road Initiative faltersNew study attempts to capture total rescue loans from world’s biggest bilateral creditorChina has significantly expanded its bailout lending as its Belt and Road Initiative blows up following a series of debt write-offs, scandal-ridden projects and allegations of corruption.A study published on Tuesday shows China granted $104bn worth of rescue loans to developing countries between 2019 and the end of 2021. The figure for these years is almost as large as the country’s bailout lending over the previous two decades.The study by researchers at AidData, the World Bank, the Harvard Kennedy School and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy is the first known attempt to capture total Chinese rescue lending on a global basis.Between 2000 and the end of 2021, China undertook 128 bailout operations in 22 debtor countries worth a total of $240bn.China’s emergence as a highly influential “lender of last resort” presents critical challenges for the western-led institutions such as the IMF, which have sought to safeguard global financial stability since the end of the second world war.“The global financial architecture is becoming less coherent, less institutionalised and less transparent,” said Brad Parks, executive director of AidData at the College of William and Mary in the US. “Beijing has created a new global system for cross-border rescue lending, but it has done so in an opaque and uncoordinated way.”Rising global interest rates and the strong appreciation of the dollar have raised concerns about the ability of developing countries to repay their creditors. Several sovereigns have run into distress, with a lack of co-ordination among creditors blamed for prolonging some crises.Sri Lanka president Ranil Wickremesinghe called on China and other creditors last week to quickly reach a compromise on debt restructuring after the IMF approved a $3bn four-year lending programme for his nation.China has declined to participate in multilateral debt resolution programmes even though it is a member of the IMF. Ghana, Pakistan and other troubled debtors that owe large amounts to China are closely watching Sri Lanka’s example.“[China’s] strictly bilateral approach has made it more difficult to co-ordinate the activities of all major emergency lenders,” said Parks.Several of the 22 countries that China has made rescue loans to — including Argentina, Belarus, Ecuador, Egypt, Laos, Mongolia, Pakistan, Suriname, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Ukraine, and Venezuela — are also recipients of IMF support.However, there are big differences between IMF programmes and Chinese bailouts. One is that Chinese money is not cheap. “A typical rescue loan from the IMF carries a 2 per cent interest rate,” said the study. “The average interest rate attached to a Chinese rescue loan is 5 per cent.”Beijing also does not offer bailouts to all Belt and Road borrowers in distress. Big recipients of Belt and Road financing, which represent a significant balance sheet risk for Chinese banks, are more likely to receive emergency aid.“Beijing is ultimately trying to rescue its own banks. That’s why it has gotten into the risky business of international bailout lending,” said Carmen Reinhart, a Harvard Kennedy School professor and former chief economist at the World Bank Group.China’s lending is in two forms. The first is through a “swap line” facility, where yuan is disbursed by the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, in return for domestic currency. Around $170bn was disbursed in this way. The second is through direct balance of payments support, with $70bn pledged, mostly from state-owned Chinese banks.The Belt and Road Initiative is the world’s largest-ever transnational infrastructure programme. The American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think-tank, has put the value of China-led infrastructure projects and other transactions classified as “Belt and Road” at $838bn between 2013 and the end of 2021.The bailout bonanza reveals shortcomings in the design of a scheme described by Chinese leader Xi Jinping as “the project of the century”. One issue, said Christoph Trebesch of the Kiel Institute, was that Chinese lenders “really went into many countries that turned out to have particularly severe problems”.Other deficiencies derived from a dearth of feasibility studies and a general lack of transparency, according to the study.Several projects became cause célèbre for how not to undertake development lending. An infamous $1bn “road to nowhere” in Montenegro remains unfinished and dogged by corruption allegations, construction delays and environmental issues.“White elephants” such as Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port and Lotus Tower are seen as symptoms of the country’s debt crisis, while more than 7,000 cracks were found in an Ecuadorean dam built by Chinese contractors near an active volcano.
Are we the Byzantines?When Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans on Tuesday, May 29, 1453, the Byzantine Empire and its capital had up to that point survived for 1,000 years beyond the fall of the Western Empire at Rome.Always outnumbered in a sea of enemies, the Byzantines' survival had depended on its realist diplomacy of dividing its enemies, avoiding military quagmires, and ensuring constant deterrence.Generations of self-sacrifice ensured ample investment for infrastructure. Each generation inherited and improved on singular aqueducts and cisterns, sewer systems, and the most complex and formidable city fortifications in the world.Brilliant scientific advancement and engineering gave the empire advantages like swift galleys and flamethrowers - an ancient precursor to napalm.The law reigned supreme for nearly a millennium after the emperor Justinian codified a prior 1,000 years of Roman jurisprudence.Yet this millennium-old crown jewel of the ancient world that once was home to 800,000 citizens had only 50,000 inhabitants left when it fell.There were only 7,000 defenders on the walls to hold back a huge Turkish army of over 150,000 attackers.The Islamic winners took over the once magical city of Constantine and renamed it Istanbul. It had been the home of the renowned Santa Sophia, the largest Christian church in the world for over 900 years. Almost immediately, this "Church of the Holy Wisdom" was converted into the then largest mosque in the Islamic world, with minarets to follow.So what happened to the once indomitable city fortress and its empire?Christendom had cannibalized itself. Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy fought endlessly. Westerners often hated each other more than they did their common enemy.In the final days of Constantinople, almost no help was sent from Western Europe to the besieged city.In fact 250 years earlier, the Western Franks of the Fourth Crusade had detoured from the Holy Land to storm the supposedly allied Christian City of Constantinople. Then they ransacked it and hijacked the Byzantine Empire for a half-century. Constantinople never quite recovered.The 14 th-century Black Plague killed tens of thousands of Byzantines and scared thousands more into moving out of the cramped city.But the aging and dying empire battled more than the challenges of internal divisions, or an unforeseen but deadly pandemic and the empire's disastrous responses to it.The last generations of Byzantines had inherited a global reputation and standard of living that they themselves no longer earned.They neglected their former civic values and fought endless battles over obscure religious texts, doctrines, and vocabulary.They did not expand their anemic army and navy. They did not reunite their scattered Greek-speaking empire. They did not properly maintain their once life-giving walls.Instead of earning money through their accustomed nonstop trade, they inflated their currency and were forced to melt down the city's inherited gold and silver fixtures.The once canny and shrewd Byzantines grew smug and naive. Childlessness became common. Most now preferred to live outside of what had become a half-empty, often dirty, and poorly maintained city.Meanwhile they underestimated the growing power of the Ottomans who systematically pruned away their empire. By the mid-15th century, Islamic armies were ready to exploit fatal Byzantine weaknesses.The Sultan Mehmed II grandly announced the Ottomans were now the real, the only world power. Ascendant Ottoman armies would eventually move on to the very gates of Vienna in an effort to rule all the lands of the ancient Roman empire.We should take heed from the last generations of the Byzantines.Nowhere is it foreordained that America has a birthright to remain the world's preeminent civilization.An ascendant China seems eerily similar to the Ottomans. Beijing believes that the United States is decadent, undeserving of its affluence, living beyond its means on the fumes of the past - and very soon vulnerable enough to challenge openly.Left and Right seem to hate each other more than they do their common enemies.Like the Byzantines, Americans gave up defending their own borders, and simply shrugged as millions overran them as they pleased.Our once iconic downtowns, like end-stage Constantinople before the fall, are now dirty, half-deserted, dangerous, and dysfunctional.America prints rather than makes money, as its banks totter near bankruptcy.Americans similarly believe they are invincible without ensuring in reality that they are. Our military is more worried about being "woke" than deadly.Like Byzantines, Americans have become snarky iconoclasts, more eager to tear down art and sculpture that they no longer have the talent to create.Current woke dogma, obscure word fights, and sanctimonious cancel culture are as antithetical to the past generations of World War II as the last generation of Constantinople was to the former great eras of the emperors Constantine, Justinian, Heraclius, and Leo.The Byzantines never woke up in time to understand what they had become.So far neither have Americans.
Todos los imperios conocen sus decadencias, es cierto.Pero de los orientales no cabe esperar tanto como se dice. Se sabe que China podía haber descubierto América mucho antes que Colón si no se hubiese encerrado en sí misma. Japón parecía que tras el trauma de la guerra se iba a comer el mundo, hasta que estalló su burbuja y llevan tres décadas de estancamiento.Oriente tiende a cuestionar muy poco las cosas, y hacerlo es algo que curiosamente el artículo defiende como símbolo de civilización pujante. Atreverse a hacer, en una frase corta. Súmenle a eso un primer ministro chino que desconfía de las nuevas tecnologías y no sabe de economía tanto como sería deseable.Y mejor no hablemos de Rusia... Putin soñaba con un colapso de la OTAN, y ahora está mandando al frente tanques de hace 60 años o más porque ha perdido sus reservas. Un estado hipercorrupto como Rusia no puede pretender medirse con "los niños mayores".Occidente tiene que dejar su empanada wokista, es cierto. Pero las alternativas a sucederle no están nada allá. Si al menos fuesen potencias militares con mucha más fuerza que Occidente... ya se sabe que el que tiene la espada es el que hace lo que quiere. Pero en eso Rusia es un desastre absoluto, China sí está en posición de plantar cara pero tampoco le interesa una guerra abierta por sus intereses comerciales.
Tras años de subidas, han llegado las rebajas en el mercado inmobiliario. "El precio lleva bajando desde el último semestre de 2022", señala al respecto Lázaro Cubero, director de Análisis del Grupo 'Tecnocasa', mientras que Francisco Iñareta, portavoz de 'Idealista' indica que "aunque la demanda se mantiene muy alta, el número de compraventas ya empieza a dar signos de agotamiento".
María Antón lleva ocho meses intentando vender su casa de Valencia, y ante la falta de llamadas y visitas, se ha visto obligada a bajar el precio. "Es una decisión que nos ha costado tomar porque el precio es justo, Nosotros pagamos más de lo que estamos pidiendo ahora por el piso, pero las pocas visitas que hemos tenido vienen con ofertas muy agresivas sin ningún tipo de pudor porque saben que no hay movimiento y que las cosas están difíciles", expresa Antón.
“Al final de las burbujas no hay que creerse nada” habría que añadir que en estos tiempos de guerra no hay que creerse la propaganda generalista.Para entender el mundo hay que dejar de medir todo con los parámetros uropeos. Básicamente estás diciendo que si un país no conquista el mundo militarmente para luego exprimirlo económicamente no se puede considerar imperio. Quizá esto no sea verdad.Respecto a la guerra de Ucrania ya se han dicho tantas fake news, que lo de los tanques rusos de 600 años ya no debería ser worthy de nombrar.
[Los precios inmobiliarios no son precios en sentido técnico-económico, sino COTIZACIONES; cotizaciones del 'AHORRO DEL POBRE'; falso ahorro —en realidad, consumo y juego de dinero-sin-trabajar— que se financia con RENTAS SALARIALES; rentas salariales que minoran la acumulación del CAPITAL.]
Respecto a la guerra de Ucrania ya se han dicho tantas fake news, que lo de los tanques rusos de 600 años ya no debería ser worthy de nombrar.