[Andy Mukherjee] Bad loan farce gets another rerun in India

A new year, a new central bank governor. Yet the first salvo to come out of the Reserve Bank of India’s policy arsenal in 2019 is encouragement of good old “extend and pretend” lending.Banks and shadow banks are being allowed a one-time restructuring of loans of up to 250 million rupees ($3.6 million) to micro, small and medium enterprises that were in default on Jan. 1, without having to mark them as nonperforming, the RBI said Tuesday. Lenders are being given an extension of 15 months (up to M

Jan. 3, 2019

[Satyajit Das] Five doom loops to navigate in 2019

As the great unwind of global monetary stimulus gains momentum, markets are at increased risk of experiencing doom loops. Investors need to be prepared for these downward spirals, where shocks set off a self-perpetuating sequence of disruptions.There are five doom loops that feed each other in a financial crisis. The collateral doom loop. Declines in the value of stocks, bonds, property or derivatives tied to them trigger margin calls. These demands for collateral absorb cash or necessitate liqu

Jan. 2, 2019

[Eli Lake] How the US should treat Brazil’s Bolsonaro

When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shows up in Brasilia on New Year’s Day for the inauguration of Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, he should prepare for some bad press.The incoming leader of the Western Hemisphere’s second-largest economy campaigned like the strong men of Latin America’s past. One newspaper marked his victory in October with the headline: “Fascism Has Arrived in Brazil.” A headline in a foreign-policy magazine compared his political style to that of Joseph Goebbels.The

Jan. 2, 2019

[Harsha Kakar] Politicians in glass houses should not throw stones

A senior Indian National Congress politician, Veerappa Moily, seeking to counter comments of the country’s air force chief on the Rafale aircraft, termed him a “liar.”This was because the air force chief’s comments were at variance with those of his party. P Chidambaram of the congress subsequently requested the army and air force chiefs stay away from the Rafale controversy, as their words were impacting the congress stand.Earlier another congress leader, Sandeep Dixit, had called the army chie

Jan. 2, 2019

[Christopher Balding] Beijing dithers as the economy declines

China’s annual economic policy summit has come and gone, leaving a wet lump of coal in place of stimulus hopes. Beijing will have to do better if it wants to steer the country to another year of robust growth.The economy started slowing in September, and has only worsened since then. Consumption tax revenue was up 16.3 percent year-to-date as of that month. In the following two months, it collapsed, recording declines of 62 percent and 71 percent from a year earlier. Value-added tax revenue has

Jan. 2, 2019

[Mohamed A. El-Erian] Life is getting harder for central banks

For reasons largely outside its control, the Federal Reserve is now being widely blamed for fueling financial market instability and risking derailment of the US economy. This is quite a contrast from just a few months ago, when it was still being feted by many for its role as an active and effective repressor of financial market volatility. It is probably only a matter of time until the European Central Bank finds itself in a similar, perhaps tougher position. The reality is both central banks

Jan. 1, 2019

[Anne Stevenson-Yang] Trump’s China strategy isn’t working

The Trump administration’s willingness to push the Chinese harder on trade has struck a bilateral chord. Beijing is listening. So far, so good. Now the question is what the US wants to achieve. Answer: the total destruction of China as a competitor.That isn’t a trade goal, and the demands being made contradict one another. This aim also unnecessarily awakens Beijing’s deepest nationalist fears.Unsure what to offer next -- and convinced that the US effectively persuaded Canada to take an executiv

Jan. 1, 2019

[Albert R. Hunt] No, Mr. Trump, the press is only the enemy of lies

President Donald Trump doesn’t read or study history, so he’s probably unfamiliar with the Alien and Sedition Acts. He’d love them. They were the infamous series of discredited measures promulgated by President John Adams in 1798 and designed, in part, to silence unfriendly journalists.Trump poses the greatest challenge to a free press at least since President Richard Nixon. Any story that doesn’t celebrate him he derides as “fake news.” He’s repeatedly called journalists the “enemy of the peopl

Jan. 1, 2019

[Walter Shapiro] My dream 2020 candidate -- someone to heal America’s wounds

As an alumnus of Newsweek and Time in their glory days, I sometimes can’t resist thinking like a news-magazine editor. Any news event -- the government shutdown, the withdrawal from Syria, the Brexit mess -- can be summarized by that all-purpose cover line, “NOW FOR THE HARD PART.”Similarly, the obvious cover for next Monday would be a racetrack starting gate with more than a dozen familiar Democrats (“There’s Bernie, there’s Beto, there’s Biden, there’s Booker ... ”) leaning forward in their sa

Dec. 31, 2018

[Andy Mukherjee] Half a billion millennial voters are face of Asia 2019

In the first half of 2019, a billion Asians will elect the next leaders of the region‘s two largest democracies. Half -- 400 million in India, and 79 million in Indonesia -- are from the millennial generation, born roughly between 1982 and 2001. Many will cast ballots for the first time. Although the threat of sectarian hatred looms large over both the Indian and Indonesian elections, economics will still take center stage.The issue that will resonate most with younger voters is jobs.Indonesia’s

Dec. 31, 2018

[Kurniawan Hari] At 24 years WTO faces more challenges

The World Trade Organization is to celebrate its 24th anniversary in January 2019. There is no better chance than today to assess the performance and outlook of the global organization.Such an evaluation is timely because the G-20 leaders’ summit in Buenos Aires in early December called for reforms in the WTO and also because of the global crisis stemming from the trade war between the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China.To assess its future, we need to look into the histo

Dec. 31, 2018

[Justin Fendos] Emergence of #MeToo tribalism in politics

US partisan politics and the South Korean #MeToo movement shouldn’t have much in common. But if Koreans aren’t careful, the two are in danger of becoming similar, devoured by the pitfalls of tribalism. In many ways, the #MeToo discourse in Korea is in danger of devolving into a contest of whether you are against men or against women, with little ground in between.The dangers of bipolarization have been on full display in the US for a few decades now. In the recent midterm election, urban America

Dec. 28, 2018