The ECB is a month into what it has signaled will be at least an eighteen-month asset purchase program. It had begun buying asset-backed securities and covered bonds earlier, but starting last month began buying sovereign and supranational bonds.
As of April 3, the ECB settled 4.89 bln euros of ABS purchases, 65.67 bln euros of covered bond purchases and 52.52 bln euros of public bonds (sovereigns and supranational bonds).
Those who seek reconciliation with Japan’s neighbours and those who would rather paint a picture of a glorious wartime past still tears at Japan. These differences in attitude are never more apparent than between the increasingly nationalistic Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership and the liberal Imperial family.
Over the last several decades, recycling has grown into an extremely prominent industry, not just in the United States, but also around the world. However, economics realities impact “feel good” green industries just as much as the worst polluting companies. Indeed, one common target for environmental reform, the oil industry, may actually be harming recycling as it suffers its own price collapse.
On 21 January 2015, the Japanese government received a threat from the Islamic State (IS) that it would behead two Japanese hostages unless Japan paid a US$200 million ransom. The message from IS pointed to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s announcement that Japan would offer US$200 million in assistance to states countering IS as part of a US$2.5 billion assistance package for Middle Eastern states. How will the hostage crisis impact Japanese foreign policy, and especially Japan’s use of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF)?
Much has been made of the widening gap between the richest and poorest in America. But, a recent study shows a difference in the ways that the classes make and spend their money and helps explain why issues like inflation and economic recovery are of such differing degrees of importance to the rich and the poor, respectively.
For decades, and especially since 11 September 2001, many academics, policymakers and activists have struggled against what they consider unacceptable attacks on Muslims and Islam itself. Over a decade before President Obama used the same words, President Bush said of the War on Terror, ‘Ours is…not a war against Islam’.
The disappointing US employment data reinforces our expectation that after a strong advance in Q1 the US dollar will correct lower in Q2. The euro’s performance is also broadly consistent with the US experience in which the dollar sold off in anticipation of QE and then rallied on the fact. The euro recorded its low within a week of the ECB’s launch of its public sector purchase program.
An effort to weaken organized labor is sweeping the Midwest, a region with a rich history of union activism.
The strategy takes advantage of a curious provision of US labor law, section 14 (b). It allows states to pass laws that prohibit unions from negotiating the collection of union dues with employers and, more specifically, from compelling workers covered by the bargaining agreement to pay them as a condition of employment.
Much has been made of the 100-plus business figures that came out in support of the Conservative Party.
A letter published on the front page of The Daily Telegraph and the huge amount of debate it has provoked, has implicitly suggested that the views of these “business leaders” are of disproportionate importance and are worth listening to above others. But what are the sources of this elevation and are they justified?
Accusations against Cambodia made following the controversial 2012 ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh fail to acknowledge the challenges that each member state faces with the rise of China.
