barryqwalsh
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- Sep 30, 2014
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I’ve been on a mini-tour, full of echoes and warnings. First, to the Grange Festival in Hampshire, where we might still have been enjoying the summer of ’87: a moneyed audience in a Barings mansion laughing at funny foreigners in John Copley’s retro Seraglio (see Richard Bratby’s crit last week).
Then to Oxford, to show an American friend the gardens of my alma mater, Worcester College, and recall the sweltering heat of ’76 that distracted us from revising for finals or noticing the Labour-driven economic crisis that would blight the start of our careers that autumn. Then to London, to make light of Trump with other American friends — and back home to Helmsley, of which more in a moment.
This is a season of feelgood — at least until thunder and flash floods strike. As we chat of Southgate’s waistcoat and Wimbledon and Love Island, we choose to ignore the harbingers of difficult times to come — and the market twitches that might, on past form, turn to turmoil as early as August.
Experts tell us bond markets are beginning to signal (via ‘a flattening of the yield curve’, too technical to explain here) recession ahead, driven by rising interest rates and tighter credit in the US, plus the fast-escalating trade war with China which the Washington economist Adam Posen calls ‘Trump’s Folly’ for short. The long bull run in equities is overdue for an ending, too, according to several top analysts, share indices having wilfully shrugged off not only Trump’s follies but much else that might have shaken them.
And I need hardly go on again about the effect of Brexit uncertainty on business investment throughout the UK, not just in the auto industry I wrote about last week; nor about the threats to eurozone growth from political upheaval in Germany and Italy; nor the long-anticipated debt crises in China and emerging markets that may be brought to the boil by rising rates; nor the impact of rising oil prices if the Saudis won’t do Trump’s bidding and open the taps.
Enjoy the sunshine, the tennis, the Spectator readers’ tea party and whatever else makes your summer. We’ll cope with what happens next when it comes. But if it includes a slump in world trade on top of a chaotic Brexit while financial markets crash under their own momentum, it might just turn out to be that most feared of doomster clichés: the perfect storm.
Enjoy your feelgood summer while you can – there may be trouble ahead | The Spectator
barryqwalsh
"Opening Posts require more than a Copy and Paste with a Link, You need to include relevant, on topic material of your own."
Then to Oxford, to show an American friend the gardens of my alma mater, Worcester College, and recall the sweltering heat of ’76 that distracted us from revising for finals or noticing the Labour-driven economic crisis that would blight the start of our careers that autumn. Then to London, to make light of Trump with other American friends — and back home to Helmsley, of which more in a moment.
This is a season of feelgood — at least until thunder and flash floods strike. As we chat of Southgate’s waistcoat and Wimbledon and Love Island, we choose to ignore the harbingers of difficult times to come — and the market twitches that might, on past form, turn to turmoil as early as August.
Experts tell us bond markets are beginning to signal (via ‘a flattening of the yield curve’, too technical to explain here) recession ahead, driven by rising interest rates and tighter credit in the US, plus the fast-escalating trade war with China which the Washington economist Adam Posen calls ‘Trump’s Folly’ for short. The long bull run in equities is overdue for an ending, too, according to several top analysts, share indices having wilfully shrugged off not only Trump’s follies but much else that might have shaken them.
And I need hardly go on again about the effect of Brexit uncertainty on business investment throughout the UK, not just in the auto industry I wrote about last week; nor about the threats to eurozone growth from political upheaval in Germany and Italy; nor the long-anticipated debt crises in China and emerging markets that may be brought to the boil by rising rates; nor the impact of rising oil prices if the Saudis won’t do Trump’s bidding and open the taps.
Enjoy the sunshine, the tennis, the Spectator readers’ tea party and whatever else makes your summer. We’ll cope with what happens next when it comes. But if it includes a slump in world trade on top of a chaotic Brexit while financial markets crash under their own momentum, it might just turn out to be that most feared of doomster clichés: the perfect storm.
Enjoy your feelgood summer while you can – there may be trouble ahead | The Spectator
barryqwalsh
"Opening Posts require more than a Copy and Paste with a Link, You need to include relevant, on topic material of your own."
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