Oscar Ugarteche

The IMF's World Economic Outlook appeared on 12 October, and the report on China's economy came out on 24 October. Both are bad economic news reports. However, the IMF report gives terrible news for some but only a few, which seems unrealistic in an adverse global environment. The dependence of Western central banks on the Fed's interest rate is a reality in a world of open balances of payments and deregulated financial markets. When the Fed moves the interest rate, all central banks move in the same direction, or the exchange rate suffers as a consequence.

Desde 1990, la idea de la independencia de los bancos centrales respecto a los gobiernos nacionales se ha universalizado. Se materializó con cambios constitucionales en algunos países y legales en otros, que impiden que el banco central financie las finanzas públicas, salvo en los países del G7 y China. Este principio va acompañado de la apertura sin restricciones de las cuentas de capital y de la completa desregulación de los mercados financieros.

In January 2022, the IMF predicted a year of low growth with high inflation. Since then, the IMF has twice lowered its projections giving a gloomy outlook for global growth. OBELA estimated that the FED and the European Central Bank were in a dilemma where they would either ride with high inflation and some recovery or use the conventional monetary instruments of raising the interest rate and knock down the fragile consumption and investment dynamics to bring down inflation. There was a difference between the Fed having a monetary problem and the ECB recognising the geopolitical inflation issues. The result has been that both decided to raise interest rates and reduce liquidity, with predictable consequences.

México es una economía mixta: su PIB se ubica entre los 20 países más grandes del mundo, algunas ramas industriales tienen presencia global y su fuerza de trabajo es competitiva a nivel internacional; sin embargo, su desempeño en las últimas décadas ha sido ínfimo al grado de que, después de la caída de 2020, fue uno de los países latinoamericanos con la recuperación económica más lenta. ¿Cuál es la realidad que enfrenta la economía mexicana?

The war in Ukraine has made evident the old US-led unipolar world order is dead, and a new one is in the making. Kissinger said, "Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between them.” There are three ways of understanding the Ukrainian war. One is the recovery of Ukraine by Russia after thirty years of independence to prevent Nato and the US from stepping in.