The world slows down. THEstars and stripes economy it slows down and risks falling below 2% growth, against the 3% promised with the mega tax cut launched by Trump almost two years ago. The Chinese economy is slowing down but is developing more than adequately. In Japan, consumer confidence is falling but services are holding up. In Europe, Germany is hit more than the others by the recession in international trade, but it is the entire euro area that is in trouble. The miasma of the US-China trade war weighs on everyone and the Americans, strengthened by the WTO ruling on illegal aid to Airbus, are preparing to hit Europe with retaliatory tariffs. The direct effects may be limited, but the deleterious cloak of uncertainty does serious damage.
Italy: the maneuver is neutral, rates help. The Italian economy is, as a rule, exposed to the (today adverse) winds of the international economy, but economic policies are, on the whole, supportive of domestic demand which is advancing together with the export. The structural deficit of the public budget is imperceptibly expansionary, while monetary policy strongly supports credit to households and businesses. The indications on consumption remain moderately positive (the basic income is of some use) and construction accelerates. Investments are likely to be frozen, as everywhere, by the aforementioned uncertainty.
Inflation goes down again. The temperature of the consumer prices it decreases again, and remains far from the objective of the central banks (below but close to 2%): it reflects, in Italy and abroad, the general weakness of the economy. The price of oil has returned below the level of $60 a barrel as fears about Saudi Arabia's production capacity, only temporarily reduced by drone attacks, have subsided.
Fears and tremors of the financial markets. The US money market is the biggest and best oiled in the world, but something goes wrong with liquidity management and the Fed has been and will be forced to intervene. More generally, there are concerns about venturing into higher-risk investments on the spur of a cost of money very (too?) low; the world has moved towards a situation in which bonds with negative interest rates spread (17 trillion dollars, according to the latest estimates). In Europe, the ECB promptly implemented a policy of support for the economy and the euro weakened, which European producers are not unhappy about.
Global trade falls but made in Italy advances 
Hypercompetition keeps prices cold 
Joys and sorrows of mini-badgers
