Economics

Readers inquire: “Is Biden making foreign governments lose faith in U.S. bonds? In the dollar itself?” Or, “Is this another crooked move by the Chinese ...

This was the 1980s “farm crisis” and the rapid deindustrialization of the “rust belt.” And the economic pain was deep and widespread. It was the dawn of a new age in U.S. And yes, a nation can manipulate the value of its currency to gain an edge in trade. Over the last several years, that usually has included around $1.1 trillion in U.S. In a matter of months, some poor, oil-importing countries used up most of their foreign currencies to pay for fuel. In the dollar itself?” Or, “Is this another crooked move by the Chinese government to manipulate the value of their currency to cheat us?” So it is not unusual to see prudently managed nations maintain one- to two-years supply of foreign currencies. Your country needs them to pay for imports and to make interest and principal payments on any money you owe to other nations that are not denominated in your own currency. You spend these foreign currencies when you pay for imports of raw materials or manufactured goods or for services. But before we explain why, in a future column, we need to lay the groundwork by explaining why other nations, such as China or Russia or Ukraine or Somalia or Peru, maintain stockpiles of U.S. Moreover, private businesses in many countries, manufacturing as well as commercial or financial, also often choose to hold substantial balances of U.S. The mainstream financial press has noted this gradual runoff in Chinese ownership of these bonds, but has not raised alarms.

A former mining engineer turned bank economist becomes the Bank of Nova Scotia's first head of inclusion and resilience economics.

“Much more so than a lot of people who have very good ideas, but who work in a more narrow setting or don’t have access to the communications vehicle that we do.” Perrault said his economics group “got a little bit of a taste” for the strong influence that it could have on policy issues two years ago, when it published a report advocating for universal affordable child care. “It was striking to us, that some of these what we would have typically considered more social concerns were having really important impacts on the lives of people – and, ultimately, on the economy. She notes that two-thirds of newcomers enter the country with university degrees, but only a little more than one-third get jobs that are related to their degrees. But the COVID-19 pandemic, and the complex web of economic consequences that wove through the crisis, was a serious wake-up call. Young will take a leading commentary role on evolving economic trends – such as climate change, technological transformation and shifting demographics – and the inequalities and vulnerabilities that those changes expose in certain segments of the population.