November 2015
- Opinion
- Opinion
How the QE trillions missed their mark
Making money cheap and plentiful should have boosted future investment. Instead it just inflated the value of existing assets -- and threatens problems as it is unwound.
- Updated
September 2015
- Opinion
- Opinion
Malcolm Turnbull has Churchillian gifts – and their drawbacks
Just as Winston Churchill was extremely gifted, but intolerable to be around, so goes Malcolm Turnbull. He will need to maximise his gifts to succeed in difficult economic times.
- Updated
August 2015
- Opinion
Low interest rates make the unthinkable routine
Interest rates are so low that they are fuelling asset bubbles, writes Maximilian Walsh
- Updated
July 2015
- Opinion
- Opinion
Keeping politics out of banking has paid off handsomely
Australia's four pillars policy exemplifies democracies that have kept the merger ambitions of bankers under control.
- Updated
- Opinion
- Opinion
The low-yield world is not ending any time soon
Low interest rates don't just reflect low global growth – they are helping to keep it that way, according to the Bank of International Settlements.
- Updated
June 2015
- Opinion
- Opinion
Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign in working in China
Only strong leadership that can take on vested interests will bring the reforms needed to stop China stagnating in a middle income trap.
- Updated
- Opinion
- Opinion
Financial crisis still not over seven years after Lehman Brothers
Illiquid markets, ill-targeted monetary policy, financial repression and demographics are all triggers for a crash that we have overlooked in our halting recovery from the last one.
- Updated
May 2015
- Opinion
- Opinion
Narendra Modi, Xi Xinping and Shinzo Abe show Australia how to reform
As Joe Hockey's latest budget illustrates, it's a lot easier for politicians to talk about economic reform than it is to actually implement it.
- Updated
April 2015
- Opinion
- Opinion
The IMF has never been as important, or as lost
The IMF latest World Economic Outlook survey has dropped the neo-liberalism of the 70s, but doesn't seem to know how to replace it.
- Updated
- Opinion
Lift interest rates to avoid secular stagnation
As expected, the Reserve Bank of Australia left the official short-term interest rate unchanged after this week's board meeting.
- Updated
March 2015
- Opinion
- Opinion
The road back to monetary normal cannot be smooth
The US Federal Reserve can't afford to fall behind the curve in a way that it did in 1994 when it threw a 75 basis point rock in front of a recovering economy.
- Updated
February 2015
- Opinion
- Opinion
Ghost in the digital machine haunts the job market
A group of prominent intellectuals are concerned that machines with processing power greater than the human brain will take over.
- Updated
- Opinion
- Opinion
It’s not polite to mention the currency war
Sovereign debt being bought and sold in vast volumes at or below zero along with negative inflation expectations, signal a new phase of global financial crisis.
- Updated
January 2015
- Opinion
- Opinion
Why deflation has overtaken all other worries
US President Harry Truman once asked to have a one-armed economist brief him on a particular issue. Truman said he wanted a one-armed economist because he was tired of the two-armed variety that prefaced every answer with the caveat: "On the one hand . . ."
December 2014
The crises are different, but the cause is the same
The frequency of financial crises in the era of globalisation means the next crisis is always around the corner. While there are many candidates for the driver’s seat, ranging from deflation to the geopolitical, you can be sure that debt will be on board.
- Updated
Lifting rates from near zero will not be smooth
Markets do not always obey the signals that come from the US Fed: the outcomes of attempts to normalise interest rates could ripple in many different directions.
November 2014
World’s fragile economies should give us pause
Developed countries facing poor growth and emerging economies trying to cut debt have made a nasty cocktail for the world.
October 2014
Debt and deflation make for a toxic mix
Maximilian Walsh | The world is on a debt binge and low interest rates are making it worse.
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Our livelihoods are set for technological upheaval
Job creation schemes risk being left behind by technology. But we still do not know where digital and robotic developments will take us.
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Restless Hong Kong will be a key test of Xi Jinping’s China dream
China’s new leader has an expansive vision for the country, but a dictatorial one too. How will that steer his handling of Hong Kong?
- Updated