In The News

Drug Making’s Move Abroad Stirs Concerns

Gardiner Harris January 28, 2009
Consumers want inexpensive medications and yet express concern about pharmaceutical firms relocating factories abroad, along with the loss of jobs and possible loss of quality control. “Like other manufacturing operations, drug plants have been moving to Asia because labor, construction, regulatory and environmental costs are lower there,” reports Gardiner Harris for the New York Times, adding...

Beijing Puzzle

January 21, 2009
China is the world’s biggest economy, after the US and Japan, and almost became the world’s biggest exporter when global credit shrank and importing nations abruptly reduced demand. Yet the country still runs a record high trade surplus, as its exports remain competitive with those from South Korea or Taiwan. The Economist reports, “a more worrying reason why China bought less from the rest of...

Russian Gas Politics

Yoo Chul-jong January 14, 2009
Russia began supplying gas via pipeline to Western Europe during the Cold War, a result of the contract between n Leonid Brezhnev, chairman of the Soviet Communist party, and Willy Brandt, chancellor of West Germany. “Despite consistent pressure from the United States, Brandt, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 for his ‘Ostpolitik’ policy of reconciliation with socialist countries in...

Chinese Exports and Imports Continue to Shrink

Keith Bradsher January 14, 2009
China’s exports and imports continue to decline, setting up a scenario for more job losses and possible social unrest, reports Keith Bradsher for the New York Times. The sharp decline follows reduced consumer spending in the US and the West, down even for the holiday month of December. The global credit crunch also contributes to the decline: “Chinese suppliers have become more wary of shipping...

Ukraine Says Russia Shuts Down All Gas Supplies to Europe

David Jolly January 7, 2009
Russia ranks first in the proven reserves of natural gas, and Europe relies on Russia for about 20 percent of its natural gas. But that supply is disrupted as the result of a dispute between Russia and Ukraine, with both sides pointing to the other as responsible for shutting down the pipelines that supply gas to Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Italy...

US and China Must Tame Imbalances Together

Michael Pettis January 6, 2009
With surging liquidity and massive trade imbalances, no one should have been surprised by the global economic crisis, because as finance professor of Peking University Michael Pettis explains, this has been the historical pattern. Pettis details the history of the crisis, starting in 1980s, when US policy encouraged securitization of mortgages, converting illiquid assets into highly liquid...

Global Car Industry Fearful for Detroit

Nelson D. Schwartz December 16, 2008
Overseas operations have long helped carry the US car companies through hard times. But the current economic crisis is especially severe, as US car companies confront mounting health-care costs and reduced credit, an abrupt reduction in demand for oversized vehicles, volatile fuel prices which influence consumer choices, and a home base of customers who have sharply curtailed their expenditures....