ECONOMICS

After a very slow week, the key event for markets this week will be US inflation data with April’s PPI (Tuesday) and CPI (Wednesday) the highlights. We’ll see if the higher-than-expected US inflation seen in Q1 extends into Q2 or not. Markets will also hear from Powell (tomorrow) and Vice Chair Jefferson (today) as the highlights of a busy Fedspeak calendar that are included in the day-by-day list at the end. The next most important US data release is Retail Sales on Wednesday. (more…)

It has long been understood that most financial data provided by the Chinese government is propaganda designed to misrepresent the country's true economic circumstances.  At best, their statistics provide half the truth and the rest has to be discerned through deeper investigation.  When systemic crisis events take place in China it usually comes as a shock to much of the world exactly because they expend considerable resources in order to hide instability behind a thin veneer of (more…)

In the course of two years, California has turned a $100 billion surplus into a $73 billion deficit, forcing governor Gavin Newson (D) to propose painful (token) spending cuts on Friday while announcing his revised state budget.

California Governor Gavin Newsom unveils revised 2024-25 state budget on Friday, May 10 (photo: AP, Rich Pedroncelli)

When asked how the state was able to achieve such a monumental fail, Newsom – who claims the deficit is actually $27.6 billion (to (more…)