Moody’s rating agency has downgraded last week China sovereign debt notation. It echoes the numerous alerts about the excessive indebtedness of local authorities and state-owned companies. On the opposite, the State debt ratio (48%) would make many countries dreaming about it. That decision did not provoke any concern to financial markets. Shanghai, Taiwan and especially Hong Kong have followed their rise with, for the last one, a 16% increase since the beginning of the year. The Chinese risk is, in fact, overestimated and it is not new. The country has a huge current account surplus and currencies reserves above ...

Continue reading

You don’t appoint Rex Tillerson, the Exxon C.E.O by chance to lead the State Department. Oil and fossil fuels have always played an important role in American policy, when it comes to price issues or relations with producing countries, as it was during the Bush era, both the father and his son, who started their carrier in Texas, the most important producing State. Donald Trump is reviving the tradition. But the stakes are different because the world today became more complex, American production has evolved and the Middle East is put to fire and sword.

During the ...

Continue reading

Donald Trump last failure about the abrogation of Obamacare promises some others. It is highly likely that the protectionist measures he is thinking about and which were the significant times of his electoral campaign will never be adopted. The transformation of the American tax system, except if VAT is adopted, to penalize imports and reduce enterprises charges, will not happen, as other than symbolic measures against Mexico. The reason is simple: United States has more to lose than to win in going in that direction. Imports taxation would penalize American consumers. Retaliatory measures adopted by the countries which are targeted ...

Continue reading