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Confusion Reigns for Foreign Companies Operating in China Nov 16, 2022

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Investors were floored when China started cracking down on homegrown tech giants like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. in late 2020. They shouldn't have been, argues Kendra Schaefer, an expert on Chinese tech policy with Beijing-based Trivium China. For almost 20 years, the Chinese Communist Party has struggled to understand how its sprawling internet and financial technology industry fit with a socialist market economy, and things finally boiled over two years ago, Schaefer says. Increasingly, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his party want technology firms to meet "state-directed goals," she says.

In this special edition from the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, we dive into the complexities of Chinese economic policy. One of the more recent challenges for investors and foreign businesses operating in China is a lack of good intelligence, Schaefer tells host Stephanie Flanders. There's been an "exodus" of Chinese policy experts since the pandemic began, she says, partly because of restrictions on travel inside the country. Schaefer herself recently relocated to the US from Beijing.

For now, many foreign companies have been confused by recent aggressive moves out of Beijing and powerless to do much about it. While investors were befuddled by new regulations on China's big tech firms, behind the scenes the country was increasingly uneasy with their power and apparent lack of interest in Communist Party objectives. Instead of "disrupting pizza delivery," tech giants should focus more on developing high-end computer chips, Schaefer says, citing the opinion of party leaders.

Meantime, manufacturers have seen production grind to a halt at the slightest spread of Covid-19. For sure, some companies have talked about mitigating risk and diversifying outside of China. However, leaving altogether is hardly an option for many. Duplicating the country's supply chain would take 10 years, so "people are just doing their best to hedge their bets," Schaefer says.

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Global Pillars of Prosperity are Getting Increasingly Shaky Nov 15, 2022

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Over the past few decades, the world's economic and political leaders were spoiled by relatively low inflation and minimal borrowing costs, a supercharged economy in China driving demand and generally modest geopolitical tension. But as we know, all of that has changed. With inflation soaring, Chinese growth slowing and Russia waging war on Ukraine, Bloomberg Chief Economist Tom Orlik contends the pillars that long underpinned rising prosperity have shifted.

This week, the podcast is coming to you daily from the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, where corporate and political leaders are discussing vexing issues like sustainability and the fragile supply chain. In today's edition, Orlik shares with host Stephanie Flanders why the current challenges will play out over years, instead of months. First, even if inflation in the US ticks down to 4% by mid-2023, that will still be "way outside the Federal Reserve's comfort zone," Orlik says. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has said he'll raise interest rates until inflation subsides, but the risk is he'll ease up if unemployment gets uncomfortably high, Orlik warns, since any improvements in inflation could reverse.

The second pillar, China's previous annual growth rate of almost 10%, may settle in closer to 4%, and even that could be too optimistic, says Orlik. Finally, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden lowered the temperature between the two nations on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, left unresolved was the US effort to restrict the sale semiconductors to Chinese customers.

On that note, during one of the forum's sessions Tuesday Senior Minister of Singapore Tharman Shanmugaratnam urged restraint on the part of both the US and China. Tariffs do no one any good, he said, while nations should protect their own national security without trying to limit other nations' economic growth. ``You can't prevent China from emerging as a major player in the global economy and in the global technology space," Shanmugaratnam told Flanders.

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The World Is Having Too Few Babies, and Too Many Nov 10, 2022

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Having children isn't only expensive, but it also puts a serious dent in your social calendar. Data show many single, childless women in the US are traveling freely and earning more money, including more than their single, childless male counterparts. But when too many people forgo kids, it raises questions about the future workforce and whether it will be able to adequately fund benefits for the elderly. Increasingly, nations are grappling with how to encourage people to have children while enabling them to live their lives as they wish.

In this episode, we explore the subject of birth rates from two very different angles, and from opposite ends of the globe. In the US, editor Molly Smith shares the story of Anna Dickson, a 42-year-old from New York who's traveled to Alaska, Switzerland and Anguilla in the past year. It's something she probably couldn't have done if she had kids, she says. Likewise, a growing number of American women are making the same choice to forgo children, and they're reaping economic benefits. As of 2019, single women with no children had an average of $65,000 in wealth, or $8,000 more than similarly situated men, Smith finds.

Stephanie later chats about birth rates and government policy with Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. The total cost of raising a child in the US now exceeds $300,000, and that doesn't even include soaring college costs, Sawhill says. Despite those expenses, Congress has been lax in passing legislation to support families, she says. What's more, states with the most restrictive abortion laws also tend to be ones with the weakest social safety nets.

In the Philippines, reporter Siegfrid Alegado says there's a different dilemma, given that it has one of the highest birth rates in Southeast Asia. Women there have 2.5 children on average, which is far higher than in many advanced nations. This threatens to exacerbate poverty among the urban poor and in the countryside, Alegado says. And any effort by new President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to encourage women to use family planning faces a distinct challenge, namely that the largely Catholic country has historically frowned on contraception.

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Why Brazil's Lula May Tack Toward the Center Nov 03, 2022

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Voters in Brazil just took a leftward turn in electing former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, ousting the far-right populist incumbent. Next week, polls show US voters may move in the opposite direction, dealing a blow to Democratic President Joe Biden and his party.

This week's Stephanomics episode explores the economic and political winds in two of the world's largest nations. First, Flanders talks US midterms with Anna Wong, Bloomberg's chief US economist, and reporter Nancy Cook. Overall, the US economy is functioning better than it appears to those focusing on inflation, with a strong job market and high balances in bank accounts, Wong says. Yet, high prices have a way of making consumers feel things are gloomier than they are, and that's not good for Democrats. And if Republicans seize control of one or both houses of Congress, Cook notes that will spell the end of meaningful economic legislation from the Biden administration until the end of the term.

Next, reporter Maria Eloisa Capurro explains the challenges facing Lula after his defeat of Jair Bolsonaro. Brazil has seen progress this year on inflation, with rates falling from 12% to an expected 5.6% next month. However, economists note the improvement is less impressive than it seems, generated in large part by tax cuts instead of real changes in the economy. Meantime, the new president will be under pressure to deliver on campaign promises to cut taxes for the poor, increase them for the rich and provide a minimum income level for the most needy.

In a follow-up discussion, analyst Richard Back of XP Investimentos in Brazil shares with host Stephanie Flanders why he thinks Lula is likely to propose moderate economic policies, despite his progressive reputation. With many acolytes of Bolsonaro still in Brazil's National Congress, Lula knows he cannot be "radical or revengeful," Back says. International investors see the new president as someone who "will make distortions, but he's not the guy that will blow everything."

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Biden's Pro-Union Presidency Isn't Good Enough for Union Members Oct 27, 2022

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Ahead of next month's crucial US midterm elections, Democrats would usually be counting on the support of labor unions, historically a key constituency for the party. And unions are having a moment in this late pandemic era, with successful organizing drives among Starbucks baristas and Amazon warehouse workers. But despite President Joe Biden's efforts to woo them, many union members are showing a lack of enthusiasm for Democrats that may undercut the party's bid to keep control of both houses of Congress.

In this week's episode of the Stephanomics podcast, reporter Katia Dmitrieva provides a dispatch from the traditional union stronghold of Macomb County, Michigan. Biden, who promised to be the most pro-union president ever, has followed through to an extent by regularly touting their importance while creating a labor task force, enacting its proposals and helping secure a deal that may yet avert a damaging railroad strike. Still, some workers in this Detroit-area county say they hoped for more. Democratic efforts to raise the federal minimum wage struck out in a sharply divided Congress, and the PRO Act, legislation to strengthen collective bargaining, has stalled. In the words of one Starbucks barista, who helped unionize her store, the Biden administration's efforts have been "a little bit performative."

Then Stephanie speaks to University of California, Berkeley economist Bradford DeLong about his new book, Slouching Towards Utopia. DeLong argues that the 20th century essentially started in 1870, a technological turning point after which production was rapid enough that (at least theoretically) we could bake a large enough economic pie to provide for all. The fact that, in the real world, everyone doesn't have enough is a symptom of our failure to distribute goods and services equitably, DeLong observes. Getting in the way of that goal as well are human foibles including a desire to distribute wealth to their children and a related disdain for inheritance taxes, as well as abhorrence of people who appear to be getting a free ride, he says.

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In China, Five More Years of Xi Means Security Above All Else Oct 20, 2022

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As Xi Jinping embarks on his third term as China's president, the world's most populous nation has lost some of the zeal for growth, experimentation and global collaboration that defined it two decades ago. In its place, both Xi and China are focusing on security above everything else, argues Bloomberg Chief Economist Tom Orlik. Today, Beijing is "fighting with the US, fighting against pandemics, trying to secure what it has rather than open up and explore new opportunities," Orlik says. Everyone else is left trying to figure out how to cope with this less-freewheeling China.
On this week's Stephanomics, we delve into the present and future of China's relations with the rest of the world following the Chinese Communist Party Congress. First, host Stephanie Flanders talks with Orlik about what a third term of Xi means. It's arguable China isn't in immediate danger of slipping into bad governance, and that--for all the economic turmoil of its "zero Covid" policy--China has done a better job protecting citizens from the coronavirus than the West. In the long term, though, there are dangers. Vital positions in China's central bank or its Ministry of Finance could be staffed by old-guard bureaucrats instead of dynamic reformers, Orlik says.
Next, reporter Carolynn Look and editor James Mayger share how Europe's own relationship with China is fraying over reports of Chinese human rights abuses and anger over aggressive trade tactics against Lithuania. Still, for all the handwringing, few European companies show signs of scaling back investments in China. Finally, we reflect on an alarming speech by Scottish-born historian Niall Ferguson at a recent Group of 30 conference. He argues that, while everyone's worried that the 2020s will see a repeat of the inflationary 1970s, we may be fortunate if that's all that happens, given the prospect of economic calamity and global war.

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Bad Policies are Greasing the Wheels for a Global Recession Oct 13, 2022

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If the combination of inflation, Russia’s war on Ukraine and a surging dollar don’t send the world into recession, disastrous policy mistakes surely could. That’s the increasingly gloomy outlook among some who gathered in Washington this week for meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the Institute of International Finance. One pessimist, Martin Wolf, a longtime columnist at the Financial Times, predicts a deep downturn in Europe, one that includes the UK. That country has been dragged down by a leadership team Wolf calls “mad, bad and dangerous.”

This week’s episode delves into the dicey economic and political climates enveloping three continents. First, Wolf joins host Stephanie Flanders to discuss Europe at the IIF’s annual membership meeting, where he unloads on UK Prime Minister Liz Truss and Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng for their panned efforts to enact tax cuts—which created chaos in the British bond market and sent the pound plunging. Beyond the UK’s borders, natural gas prices that have soared thanks to the Kremlin’s war will pull Europe into contraction, Wolf said. But there’s a brighter scenario, according to Flanders. If it’s a mild winter and natural gas prices fall faster than expected, Europe could end up with too much gas.

Then, reporter Maria Eloisa Capurro details how politicians across Latin America are struggling to avoid protests over inflation that’s reached double digits in some nations. Already, people have blocked highways in Panama, rioted in Ecuador and demanded state assistance for the poor in Peru.

Finally, we hear from reporter Colum Murphy, who reveals how the Chinese Communist Party tries to keep foreign journalists in the dark. The party holds its congress in Beijing next week for the first time in five years, and Murphy will be looking for the smallest clues that party members still support President Xi Jinping. In a country where few dare speak out, Murphy said reporters glean what they can from the level of applause to Xi’s speech, which lines get the most attention and whether the party gives him another official title to the three he already holds.

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Liz Truss' Tax Fiasco Shows How UK Guardrails Have Fallen Away Oct 06, 2022

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The UK's politics and policies have always been a bit quirky. But international investors have long trusted that the country would, in the words of prominent British economist Malcolm Barr, see itself from point A to point B. Lately, those investors could be forgiven for calling that premise into question. A series of unforced errors by new Prime Minister Liz Truss and her financial team have shaken confidence in Britain's leadership at a time when its public is reeling from soaring energy and mortgage costs.

In the first episode of this season's Stephanomics podcast, we deliver a triple dose of UK turmoil. First, Bloomberg UK political editor Kitty Donaldson details Truss's arguably terrible debut. Donaldson spent the week at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, where some of the prime minister's fellow Tories are "hopping mad" after tax cuts proposed by Truss and Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng spooked financial markets and sent the pound to its lowest level since 1985. In an embarrassing U-turn, Truss had to scrap her plans to cut the 45% tax rate on top earners.

Next, Stephanie Flanders talks with Barr about what the market chaos means for the UK (both now and later) as well as its trading partners and investors. Head of European economics for JPMorgan Chase & Co., Barr argues that some of the guardrails that have steered British politicians toward sound, orthodox economic decisions in the past have fallen away. An independent central bank, a proficient civil service and functioning parliamentary oversight have all been undermined to the point that it's "hard to imagine a similar set of errors having been made by any incoming administration over the last 15 to 20 years."

Finally, Bloomberg Senior Editor Brendan Murray takes us to Liverpool, where dockworkers say they're missing out as the port city bustles with tourists and expensive new soccer stadiums. They're staging a strike to demand higher pay amid soaring inflation and interest rates, and for now, have the sympathy of the public.

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The Housing Slowdown Could Become a Global Meltdown Jul 28, 2022

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Young people unable to buy homes because of stratospheric price increases are cheering the downturn in some housing markets around the world. But they'd better be careful what they wish for: Frothy housing prices, empty office buildings and even a refusal to pay mortgages by many Chinese have the potential to turn a global economic slowdown into something much worse.

In this season's final episode, we explore the confounding real estate market, where prices in many countries have reached unsustainable levels despite a global pandemic. First, reporter Maria Paula Mijares Torres relates the struggle many low- and middle-income Americans face following rent increases averaging 14% nationwide, with some places like Miami seeing a 41% spike. About 8.4 million people in the US are behind on rent payments, and with the end of many Covid-induced eviction moratoriums, advocates for the poor fear a surge of people will be made homeless.

Bloomberg economist Niraj Shah crunches price-to-income and price-to-rent ratios to determine which housing markets are the frothiest. Topping his list are New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Australia and Canada, with the US coming in seventh. While the subprime-fueled financial crisis is still fresh in some people's minds, better mortgage quality and the growth of fixed-rate mortgages means "there is some hope that we are not going to see the worst of this," Shah says.

Stephanie talks global real estate risks with John Authers, Bloomberg Opinion columnist and author of "The Fearful Rise of Markets." The commercial real estate market is "probably the single greatest cause for concern," Authers says, particularly in New York. For developers there, a sharp increase in the supply of commercial real estate in recent years, a steep drop in occupancy rates and rising borrowing costs have created a very tricky situation. Meantime, he sees China navigating its way around a domestic property crisis without triggering a global financial crisis, though not without risks.

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Covid's Supply Chain Chaos Is Just a Dress Rehearsal for What's Coming Jul 21, 2022

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Despite all the highfalutin advances in automation and just-in-time inventory, Covid-19 has still managed to upend the world's supply chains. But all this pandemonium may be a dress rehearsal for future chaos, courtesy of challenges such as political unrest and the climate crisis, warns one author who's tracked the global flow of goods.

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the problems plaguing the retailers, warehouse operators, truckers and shippers who labor to get widgets from factory floors to your doorstep. First, reporter Augusta Saraiva explores why everything from baby formula to Teslas can still be hard to find in the US, even though the epic West Coast container ship backlog has eased. In part, consumers are to blame since they've continued buying at levels far beyond what analysts had expected, given 9.1% inflation and fears of a potential recession.

Meantime, importers are fighting over scarce capacity on trucks, ships and in warehouses, creating additional backlogs. One company was so spooked by delays last year that by April it already had 600 containers of artificial Christmas trees waiting at the Port of New York and New Jersey. In a follow-up discussion, Stephanie talks about how supply chains got so fragile with Christopher Mims, author of "Arriving Today," which traces advances allowing for same-day delivery.

Mims argues that efficient supply chains that were developed before Covid-19 struck weren't battle-tested for pandemics, wars and extreme weather. While unionized years ago, truckers today are largely non-unionized, and as a result earn about two-thirds less in real terms than truckers did 40 years ago. They are also burning out quickly from 14-hour days, Mims says. Alternately, a unionized longshoremen workforce has resisted automation, creating some of the world's least efficient ports. Eventually, supply chains will have to shorten, Mims says, with corporations bringing production in-house or nearshoring it to neighboring countries.

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