Comment, analysis and other offerings from Tuesday’s FT,
George Magnus: Renminbi reform is just the start for China
The friction between Washington and Beijing over exchange rates is about to get a lot worse, writes Magnus, senior economic adviser at UBS.The Treasury and the Congress have been deliberating inconclusively on China’s exchange rate policy since 2003, when the country’s balance of payments surplus was a tenth of what it is now and its foreign exchange reserves were a sixth of the current stock of $2,500bn (€1,840bn, £1,660bn). This time, events may play out quite differently.
Gideon Rachman: Obama’s bounce changes the world
President Barack Obama has leapt out of his political sick-bed, ripped out his feeding tubes and is ready to dance a jig around the Oval office, writes the FT’s Rachman. The Congressional approval of healthcare reform has reinvigorated the Obama presidency in a way that has implications not just for Americans, but for the world.
Michael Skapinker: Right or wrong, the customer always matters
It was Henry Gordon Selfridge, founder of London’s Selfridges store, who said “the customer is always right”. It is not the most entertaining quote on the relevant page of the Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Quotations. That belongs to French advertising man Jacques Séguéla, who wrote a book called Don’t Tell My Mother I Work in Advertising – She Thinks I’m a Piano-player in a Brothel. But it is Selfridge’s quote that has become a business truism. But is it correct, asks the FT’s Skapinker?
Philip Stephens: Britain has bigger problems than the unions
So it is back to the 1970s. Or so the Conservatives say. Britain’s present bout of industrial unrest looks like a gift for David Cameron’s party, says the FT columnist. With a general election six weeks or so away, what could be better for the opposition than the chance to summon up grim memories of the winter of discontent?
Analysis: Mortgages: A market to prop up
The FT’s Suzanne Kapner looks at the government’s efforts to get Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back on their own feet – something that’s turning out to be the trickiest part of its rescue attempts so far.
Thomas Huertas: Too big to fail is too costly to continue
The world is well aware that it needs an exit strategy from the massive monetary and fiscal stimulus that started in the final months of 2008. But we also need an exit strategy from too big to fail. It is simply too costly to continue, writes Huertas, Vice Chairman, Committee of European Banking Supervisors, and Director, Banking Sector, Financial Services Authority (UK).
Lex on US Healthcare
Stockbrokers need a story. Kim Jong-il is sick? Buy South Korea. Bad weather? Sell retailers. Sunday’s “historic” US health bill, therefore, is providing all manner of investment recommendations. There are loads of angles, from politics and the economic vibrations of a near trillion-dollar bill, to tax reform and the implications for sectors and individual companies.
The Short View: Politics and markets
Politics and markets interact in mysterious ways. This year, US political debate has revolved around healthcare. In the European Union, the issue of how to extricate Greece from its fiscal mess has crowded everything else out. Both are boiling to a conclusion. But they have not had the market consequences that might have been predicted.
Editorial Comment: Darling must give a reality Budget
On Wednesday, Alistair Darling, chancellor of the exchequer, will set out his Budget for 2010. The process is faintly surreal. A general election is expected within weeks, and investors put the probability of a Labour majority at only 7 per cent. But Mr Darling still has an important task: he must show that the Labour party is serious about restraining the deficit.
FT interactive graphic: China’s thirst for resources: Global FDI
See China’s increasing investments abroad and how it has grown in significance as an importer in the graphic from the link below.