The causes behind the current meltdown in global equities, commodity prices and EM currencies are complex, inter-connected and at times self-reinforcing. But at the heart of the problem lies the inability of policy-makers from Washington to Beijing to engineer a more robust path for economic growth in which the private sector can believe in. This problem, which is largely structural in my view, has been compounded by cyclical challenges including stretched positioning in riskier assets and historically weak equities in August, as well as country-specific concerns in Malaysia, Brazil and Russia to name but three. In ... (full story)