GDP projections from PwC: how China, India and Brazil will overtake the West by 2050

G-7 Will Be Overtaken by Emerging Economies in 2032: PwC
Source: Bloomberg News The Group of Seven economies will be surpassed in size by the largest Emerging Markets in just over two decades as the Financial Crisis accelerates the shift of power in the Global Economy, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said. The combined gross domestic product of the seven biggest developing economies will exceed that of the G-7, the world’s largest industrialized markets, in 2032 using projected market Exchange Rates, the company said in a report released in London today. C...

Food Prices Hit Record High. What Now?
On Wednesday, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization announced that food prices for basic commodities had hit record highs last month - above and beyond the soaring prices in 2008 that sparked worldwide Protests and food hoarding from Haiti to Egypt to the Philippines. Though the news has yet to evolve into the kind of crisis that unfolded that year, this round has not been without incident. In November, in China rioted in their cafeteria over the increase in School Lunch prices (our s...

Record high food prices spark riots
SINGAPORE/LONDON - Record high food prices are moving to the top of policymaker agendas, driven by fears it could stoke Inflation, protectionism and unrest and dent consumer demand in key emerging economies. The United Nations' food agency (FAO) said on Wednesday that food prices hit a record high last month, above 2008 levels when riots broke out in countries as far afield as Egypt, Cameroon and Haiti. In Asia, official data and analyst estimates both pointed to inflationary pressures. Chilli...

International rankings: Wrong numbers
MEASURING things is hard. Counting mentions of them is easy. Google’s new search tool Ngram Viewer lets users find out how often a word occurs in the millions of books the firm has scanned. It also helps analyse the salience of abstract ideas—Corruption, say—in different languages and places (see chart). Lots of new numbers will be grist to the mills of those who compile international rankings. The Hunger for crunchy comparisons of everything from venality to brainpower is huge...

DOLLAR FADE: World Bank issues 1st yuan bonds in Hong Kong...
HONG KONG (AP) - The World Bank is issuing its first bonds denominated in China's yuan in Hong Kong, joining a growing number of borrowers tapping the new Debt market as Beijing gradually promotes of its tightly controlled currency abroad. The World Bank said buyers of its 500 million yuan ($76 million), two-year bond were mainly Hong Kong-based Financial Institutions, companies and wealthy individuals. It said the money will go into its general fund, rather than being raised for a specific purp...

Zoellick: G20 must act to stabilize food prices
LONDON | Wed Jan 5, 2011 9:27pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Free markets rather than protectionist polices are the solution to volatile food prices and the G20 should take steps to prioritize the provision of food for the poor, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said. "The answer to food price Volatility is not to prosecute or block markets, but to use them better," Zoellick wrote in an opinion piece in Thursday's Financial Times urging G20 leaders to put access to food at the top of its agenda....

Zoellick: G20 must act to stabilize food prices
LONDON | Wed Jan 5, 2011 9:26pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Free markets rather than protectionist polices are the solution to volatile food prices and the G20 should take steps to priorities the provision of food for the poor, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said. "The answer to food price Volatility is not to prosecute or block markets, but to use them better," Zoellick wrote in an opinion piece in Thursday's Financial Times urging G20 leaders to put access to food at the top of its agenda....

World Bank issues its 1st yuan bonds in Hong Kong
HONG KONG (AP) - The World Bank is issuing its first bonds denominated in China's yuan in Hong Kong, joining a growing number of borrowers tapping the new Debt market as Beijing gradually promotes of its tightly controlled currency abroad. The World Bank said buyers of its 500 million yuan ($76 million), two-year bond were mainly Hong Kong-based Financial Institutions, companies and wealthy individuals. It said the money will go into its general fund, rather than being raised for a specific pur...

Record high food prices stoke fears for economy
By Neil Fullick and Peter Apps Singapore/LONDON | Thu Jan 6, 2011 8:00pm EST Singapore/LONDON (Reuters) - Record high food prices are moving to the top of policymaker agendas, driven by fears it could stoke Inflation, protectionism and unrest and dent consumer demand in key emerging economies. The United Nations' food agency (FAO) said on Wednesday that food prices hit a record high last month, above 2008 levels when riots broke out in countries as far afield as Egypt, Cameroon and Haiti. In ...

Food inflation threat moves to top of Asia policy
Singapore (Reuters) - Record high food prices are moving to the top of the agenda for many Asian policymakers as the prospect of higher Inflation in 2011 poses a major threat to the region's strong revival from the global Financial Crisis. The United Nations' food agency (FAO) said on Wednesday that food prices hit a record high last month, moving beyond the levels that prompted riots in 2008 in countries as far afield as Egypt, Cameroon and Haiti. Food Inflation in many Asian countries, includ...

After Lashing Out At China, Currency War "Loser" Brazil Is Now Furious At America
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. Brazil's Finance Minister, Guido Mantega, has lashed out at the U.S. saying, "We're not going to allow our American friends to melt The Dollar," according to The Telegraph. Mantega says his country can "manage the entry of speculative capital," (capital controls) in order to combat the real's rise against the dollar. Mantega can't be too happy. His country has been labeled the "loser" in the currency war by Nomura. Taking into consideration th...

Asian Policy-Makers Face Dilemma Of Too Many Targets
On the flip side, Taiwan is experiencing very limited price pressures and for now this supports the Central Bank’s very cautious tightening path of 12.5 BP per quarter. Headline CPI rose only 1.3% y/y in December even as core CPI remains below 1% y/y. For CBC, the argument for allowing a stronger currency to limit Inflation is clearly not as compelling as it is for others in emerging Asia. Still, TWD outperformed in Asia during Q4 after underperforming for most of 2010. With Taiwan rates n...

Record high food prices stoke economy fears
Neil Fullick and Peter Apps, Reuters · Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011 Singapore/LONDON - Record high food prices are moving to the top of policymaker agendas, driven by fears they could stoke Inflation, protectionism and unrest and dent consumer demand in key emerging economies. The United Nations' food agency (FAO) said on Wednesday that food prices hit a record high last month, moving beyond levels of 2008 when riots broke out in countries as far afield as Egypt, Cameroon and Haiti. In Asia, offi...

Record high food prices stoke fears for economy
Singapore/LONDON (Reuters) - Record high food prices are moving to the top of policymaker agendas, driven by fears it could stoke Inflation, protectionism and unrest and dent consumer demand in key emerging economies. The United Nations' food agency (FAO) said on Wednesday that food prices hit a record high last month, above 2008 levels when riots broke out in countries as far afield as Egypt, Cameroon and Haiti. In Asia, official data and analyst estimates both pointed to inflationary pressure...

Capital Controls: A Scorecard
Yahoo! Buzz With more and more money pouring into Emerging Markets, pushing up the value of domestic currencies, more and more countries are trying to slow down the influx through taxes and regulations. The Institute of International Finance , a trade association of global banks, put together a handy scorecard of what’s occurring internationally. The group list a) the measures taken; b) “quantitative indicators” of the pressure on various currencies and c) what’s likely to ha...

Housing decline points to doldrums ahead--at best
Three days after Christmas, I took a gloomy at look at the upcoming economy in "Real Estate and Republican agenda combine to put kibosh on hopes for Economic Recovery", which relied in part on field reports about the Housing Market. Now a real Economist weighs in on same. Dean Baker, via the Guardian starts off the sort of historical preamble that we should not need at this late date, and yet find ourselves needing now more than ever: America's Housing Bubble still deflating As they failed t...

Citi Downgrades Tobacco Stocks Saying Smoking Will Cease To Exist By 2050 (BTI, PM, IMT)
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. You've probably noticed the steady downward trend in smoking over the past 50 years. In a note today, Citi says this trend will continue, causing smoking to "virtually disappear in 30-50 years." But there's also negative short-term data that prompted Citi to downgrade large cap tobacco stocks (BTI, PM and IMT) to Hold from Buy. Tobacco companies were forced to cut prices facing declining sales around the world. Cigarettes also faced big tax in...

Why it's a great time to launch a hedge fund
Robert Sorrell founded the Hedge Fund Sorrell Capital last fall. He talks about his investment strategy, why more Regulation is good, and why he's short gold. It seems that an increasing number of high-powered money managers are feeling the entrepreneurial bug these days, eager to set up their own shops. While many of the moves stem from regulatory changes that will force banks to cut down on their proprietary trading businesses, some are taking the plunge to capitalize on what could be a new r...

Red China's march into California
In a week with big news about China, from their new stealth fighter to their vastly undervalued currency gaining more legitimacy thanks to the World Bank, today we learn that China is going to invest in high speed rail in California. The argument about the value to the Taxpayers of building high speed rail aside, why on earth should we allow China to begin their march into our economy by operating high speed rail in California? This is not about money, this is about China increasing their influe...

China As Number One
Back in the requests thread, someone asked for “[m]ore about demography. What are the overall trends? Have Chinese-style anti-natalist policies been vindicated by Chinese growth? Have European pro-natalist policies worked, and at what cost?” This is an under-contemplated subject in international comparisons. If you want to know about what living standards a country is able to achieve, you want to talk about GDP per capita. That’s output over people. But if you want to know ab...

China Bans Inexperienced Reporters From Securities, Futures Beats
As of February 1, news outlets must “verify the credentials of organizations and columnists before publishing their commentaries and analyses,” ensuring that Journalists have either “worked in securities and futures organizations or covered finance and economics for at least two years.” In a related move, the US has decided to take a small page from China’s playabook and ban three Journalists from writing about Wall Street, as nominated by the people. ...

Hillary Lacks Panache at Inaugural of Brazils First Woman President (Le Figaro, France)
Slamming the American media’s lack of attention to the inauguration of Brazil’s first woman president, columnist Véronique Saint-Geours of France’s Le Figaro also slams Hillary Clinton’s performance at the event. Saying that this reflects a continuing “imperialist” misunderstanding of the growing importance of Brazil, the Le Figaro columnist warns that Washington has mistakenly and self-destructively pigeonholed Brazil with the rest of South America. For Le ...

Falklands may lose vital shipping link
STANLEY, Falkland Islands, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- The Falkland Islands may lose vital shipping links to South America after maritime operators came under pressure from Argentina and its Latin backers who contest British Sovereignty on the territories. Falklands in the South Atlantic comprise a British Overseas Territory. Argentina tried to seize the islands in 1982 but was repulsed by Britain. The 74-day war led to more than 1,000 deaths of fighters and civilians and a formal Argentine surrender. Argen...

Bill Gertz On The Peaceful Decline of America
The general concept of deterrence doesn’t seem too difficult to understand does it?  It is more cost effective to have the biggest and strongest Military so that ‘competitors’ don’t find value in investing in trying to beat us.  It looks like we messed that up.  Today on Frank Gaffney’s Secure Freedom Radio, Washington Times geo-political editor Bill Gertz explains how Obama’s defense cuts will cost us more in the long run as the not-so-peaceful...

Harbin Ice And Snow Sculpture Festival Opens In China (PHOTOS)
An indoor pavilion in China's Heilongjiang province was instantly transformed to a sparkling fairyland with the launch of the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival on Jan. 5. One of the largest ice-carving events of its kind, the festival featured giant pagodas, Skyscrapers, an Egyptian Sphinx and even a full-scale Disney castle rendered entirely in ice, CNN is reporting. Now in its 27th year, the event also offers a wide range of wintry activities, including ice swimming, hot air ballooning and other...