Paul Hannon
Appearances
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Bounce Back on Hopes of Trade War De-Escalation
Their problem is to do with protecting businesses in such a way that everybody gets a little bit kind of lazy and complacent. And that dynamism that the U.S. economy in particular is renowned for ebbs away, maybe slowly, maybe very quickly.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Bounce Back on Hopes of Trade War De-Escalation
Well, there are two things going on. One is the tariffs themselves, they make imports more expensive. So for a lot of businesses, it's just going to become more costly to produce the stuff that they produce. And then it will become more difficult for them to find buyers. And then there's a kind of more general feeling of uncertainty about where exactly the US is going this year.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Bounce Back on Hopes of Trade War De-Escalation
And when businesses see a lot of uncertainty, what they tend to do is sort of freeze or pause decisions to invest or hire people. This, you know, sense of not really knowing how things are going to roll out in the next sort of nine months or so.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Bounce Back on Hopes of Trade War De-Escalation
They acknowledge that a lot of people feel pretty bad about the loss of factory jobs, but they argue that this is more to do with technological change, automation, the introduction of robots.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Bounce Back on Hopes of Trade War De-Escalation
And so the IMF's argument is that if it isn't globalization that's causing this problem, then tariffs really aren't something that are going to fix it, that this is just a consequence of economies growing more sophisticated over time. And you have to bear in mind that we've got artificial intelligence to deal with in the coming decade.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Bounce Back on Hopes of Trade War De-Escalation
That really depends on whether they're right about this being the start of a new era. That's one of the claims they made today that we're seeing the end of something that lasted for eight decades. Barriers to moving things across borders were getting lower and lower and it was easier and easier.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Bounce Back on Hopes of Trade War De-Escalation
If it turns out that we're now heading in the other direction and we've either just reached that level very quickly or there's more to come, then their outlook is not great.
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
I think it depends where you are in the world. It depends on whether you're in a country that's raising tariffs or in a country that is being confronted with new tariffs. The OECD's warning was catched in a certain language to kind of generalize it, but it was very specifically targeted at the US and that's where they give information.
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
Das ist das klare Vorhersage, was die Auswirkungen sein werden. Und im Zukunft, wenn Tarife hochgehen, zum Beispiel in der Europäischen Union, die noch nicht zu Trump verteidigt ist, dann wäre das inflationär. Also sind es inflationäre Threaten von Protektionismus. Und um zurück zu der Frage des Lulls zu kommen, ich meine, einer der Gründe, warum Sie das jetzt nicht sehen, ist,
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
ist, weil es so viel Stockpiling, so viel Frontrunning gab. Und was die Unternehmen tun, ist, die Kostenprofil zu flattenieren und Dinge zu kaufen, bevor die Tarife schießt. Was man also erwarten würde, ist, dass, als diese Stockpile runtergehen, And those goods are replaced. They will be buying at these new higher prices that incorporate the tariffs and they will get passed on to consumers.
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
The question for central bankers is how quickly are those increases in inflation expectations going to translate into fresh demands for higher wages and then another round of price increases.
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
So you wouldn't expect to see a sort of instant hit to inflation from the hike in tariffs that we saw in April.
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
Die OECD-Warnung geht sehr spezifisch um die USA. Es geht um die US-Inflation, die sich am Ende des Jahres steigert. Nun, es gibt Spinnungen. Wenn man einen großen Preis in einem großen Konsummarkt wie den USA hat, sind die Preise weltweit vielleicht ein bisschen auf der Ecke. Aber die wichtige Sache ist, dass diese Preise von einem Preis, der von der US-Gewerkschaft geimpft wird, gepusht werden.
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
No one else is imposing that tax. So why should inflation pick up elsewhere? Corman is a diplomat, right? So he's not going to stand up and go like, it's just the US here. He's going to make a general point.
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
But mechanically, if inflation in the biggest economy in the world doubles from your initial estimate, then the world's overall inflation rate is going to go up without it necessarily going up anywhere else at all.
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
So I think what the OECD Secretary General is saying is that central bankers have to be very careful not to give people the impression that they're going to let this thing pass through. They're going to keep borrowing costs as high as they think is necessary to make sure that inflation does not take off again. With the US, there is a difficult situation here.
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
where the OECD is forecasting this very sharp slowdown in growth now to 1.6 this year with obvious threats to the jobs market. And that's one of the Fed's concerns.
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
On the other hand, if it looks like it isn't confronting an expected rise in inflation seriously enough and later have to actually, God forbid, raise interest rates, you can imagine how well that would go down if the economy in general was kind of softening. Auf der anderen Seite ist es weniger ein Herausforderung.
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
Die Daten bewegen sich sehr viel in Europa zu schwerem ökonomischen Wachstum und wirklich Inflation, die ziemlich gut unter Kontrolle ist. Also heute sind wir sehr wahrscheinlich, dass wir noch einen Rekordkurs von der Europäischen Zentralbank sehen. Es ist der vierte Rekordkurs, seit die FED aufgehört hat. Paul Hannan ist der Wirtschaftsredakteur für Dow Jones Newswires.
WSJ What’s News
Trump Bars U.S. Travel for Citizens of 12 Countries
Wie immer, Paul, vielen Dank, dass du hier bist. Du bist willkommen, Luke.
WSJ What’s News
Powerful Earthquakes Rock Myanmar, Thailand
So we've had some business surveys that have pointed to a more upbeat outlook amongst German factories in particular. I mean, these guys are going to be making the armaments that help Europe rebuild its kind of military capacity. But also today we're seeing signs that consumers are buying into this slightly... less gloomy story with a rise in German consumer confidence.
WSJ What’s News
Powerful Earthquakes Rock Myanmar, Thailand
So yeah, there are definitely signs that we're past maximum European gloom and people are beginning to think, well, maybe the future is a little brighter than we'd expected it to be.