Economist Nouriel Roubini is standing by his prediction for a global “perfect storm” next year as economies the world over slow down or shudder to a complete halt, geopolitical risk grows and the eurozone’s debt crisis accelerates.
Roubini, the New York University professor dubbed “Dr Doom” for predicting the 2008 financial crisis, highlighted five factors that could derail the global economy.
Those factors are a worsening of the debt crisis in Europe; tax increases and spending cuts in US that may push the world’s biggest economy into recession; a hard landing for China’s economy; further slowing in emerging markets and a military confrontation with Iran.
“Next year is the time when the can becomes too big to kick it down [the road] ... then we have a global perfect storm,” Roubini said in a television interview with Reuters.
Roubini’s gloomy outlook for next year isn’t new, but it’s getting more purchase as slowing economies and Europe’s debt crisis drive turbulence in financial markets.
After what he expects will be a flat year for US stocks this year, Roubini said the equity market could face a sharp correction next year, with little the US Federal Reserve can do to stop it.
“There might be a weak rally because people are being cheered by more quantitative easing by [Chairman Ben] Bernanke and the Fed, but if the economy is weakening, that is going to put downward pressure on earnings growth,” Roubini said.
Roubini said the Federal Reserve might be pushed toward unconventional policy options as the stimulative effect of successive waves of quantitative easing — effectively printing money to buy government bonds — diminishes over time.
Unconventional policy could include “targeting the 10-year Treasury at 1 percent, doing credit easing rather than quantitative easing, targeting nominal GDP, price-level targeting and lots of stuff that is more esoteric,” Roubini said. “Eventually if everything goes wrong, they can even buy equities.”
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day