美國印錢刺激經濟，為抑製通貨膨脹，澳州，印度和中國加息

Propelled by the higher rate, the Australian dollar jumped to near parity with its U.S. counterpart. While the higher rates should work to curb inflation domestically, the higher yield relative to other developed economies will attract capital from abroad, and may cause other types of inflationary pressures, thus, Australia faces a delicate balancing challenge ahead. Still, the fact that the U.S. is contemplating pumping more money into a crawling economy while Australia is working to prevent overheated expansion highlights the dichotomy between the two economies. There’s no doubt that among developed economies, Australia is running at the front of the pack.

India, too, has raised benchmark rates this week, lifting both the repurchase and reverse repurchase rates (short-term lending rates) by a quarter percentage point. India has the second fastest inflation rate among the Group of 20 countries behind only Argentina. With about 75 percent of its population sustains itself on $2 or less per day, it’s imperative for the Indian government to contain inflation which threatens to erode purchasing power.

In China, after a summer of tightening measures and concerns that the Chinese government had overcooled its economy, the latest manufacturing numbers show that production heated up again in September. Two different purchasing managers’ indices posted strong improvements, suggesting that growth momentum in China is continuing. Input prices, reflecting higher commodity prices, led the gain in the purchasing managers’ index of the logistics federation, while manufacturers also saw strong growth in new orders helped by domestic spending on different stimulus projects.

The positive manufacturing reading and the highest inflation rate in about two years leave the door open for another interest rate increase in upcoming months, however. Two weeks ago, the first interest rate increase the country has seen since 2007 gave analysts some worry that China’s economy would slow. It seems to have had little effect. The churning economy could also give the Chinese policymakers more leeway to allow the yuan to appreciate further—if nothing else, to increase the country’s purchasing power, allowing it to buy more of the dollar-denominated commodities.

Just as the Fed was readying to make a decision to apply more stimuli to the economy, there was also some good news on the manufacturing sector in the U.S.: Activity expanded more than forecasted in October, while production and orders placed rose to five-month highs. However, despite these signs, growth in the U.S. is still too slow to make any significant dent in the persistently high unemployment rate, still close to 10 percent. This is why the Fed is still likely to announce a new round of debt purchases tomorrow afternoon at the conclusion of the latest Federal Open Market Committee meeting, and this could have significant ramifications on the dollar and global markets.

(From Dr. Stephen Leeb's E-mail)