Most coverage of the mounting US-China strategic tensions has focused on tariff threats. Equally significant are moves by the US to choke off Chinese investments in the US technology sector. These moves are part of a strategy to ensure that China can’t catch up to the US in critical technology fields by buying, or buying into, cutting-edge American firms.
At the beginning of 2018, we initiated a new EVA series titled “Bubble 3.0” with excerpts from my upcoming book (tentatively titled “Bubble 3.0: How Central Banks Created the Next Financial Crisis”).
It’s no secret that here at Evergreen we’re boisterous free-market advocates. Data and history show that economies operating freely in a system with moderate and rational government control perform better in the long-run. When economies are burdened by excessive government policy or overwhelmed with authoritarian control, nations become unstable, which often spurs abuse and extremism.
Towards the tail-end of July, the Commerce Department reported that Gross Domestic Product (also known as GDP), or the total value of goods and services produced in the US, increased at an annual pace of 4.1% in this year’s second quarter. As expected, President Trump took a victory lap around these numbers, which were the highest GDP growth results since 2014. (However, lost in the fanfare was the fact that the first quarter GDP number was revised down from 2.9% to 2.3%.)
In this exclusive Quarterly Webinar, David Hay discusses what’s happening in the economy (0:08), what could end “Bubblemania” (2:43), the yield curve and credit spreads (13:14), inflation (17:17), the US stock market (21:44), and overseas markets & energy (27:34). We have added timestamps above for reference in case you want to skip to the section, or sections, you care about the most.
