Everyone was really confused. China was the unstoppable monster, the economic powerhouse that had quite easily, it seemed, survived the Great “Recession” with barely a scratch. Its ascent to the dominant world position had been written long ago in stone, carved macro graffiti left in place especially as the so-called developed world struggled mightily after 2009.The Chinese were widely thought [...]
You have to hand it to Willian Dudley. Having committed one egregious error after another while in charge of the Fed’s New York-based Open Market Desk during the first Global Financial Crisis, Bill was kicked upstairs anyway to run that entire central bank branch following the debacle. He then continued on in the same spirit and with the same results. [...]
Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Longtime readers/followers/enthusiasts will be forgiven for immediately thinking I’m quoting myself again, as I so often do: Following its emergence, the eurodollar market played a big role in the Bretton Woods system and also its breakdown and eventual demise in the early 1970s. The primary reason I refer so much to my own [...]
The bond market’s verdict has already been rendered. In fact, the judgment was made even before this year’s CPIs surged to the highest they’d been in a long time. The most consistently accurate and only historically validated source for sorting and signaling inflation, low yields aren’t just skeptical in being low they are unequivocal in remaining steadfastly ultra-low.For those who [...]
The TIC data is great, it’s fantastic and wonderful if by comparison to the utterly slim pickings available elsewhere – which is practically nil. Compared to what I’d really like to know, the series leaves a ton out there. This is understandable if still unforgivable; on the one hand, the Treasury International Capital report itself predates the eurodollar system by [...]
Representatives in Congress from both parties were understandably apoplectic. Amidst the world’s worst monetary chaos since the Great Collapse after October 1929, legislators had been told by everyone from central bankers to all the right Economists how laws needed to passed right away, no delay, which would give the Bush Administration authority to buy up the “toxic waste” each had [...]
Why always round numbers? Monetary policy targets in the post-Volcker era always change on even terms. Alan Greenspan had his quarter-point fed funds moves. Ben Bernanke faced with crisis would auction $25 billion via TAF. QE’s are done in even numbers, either total purchases or their monthly pace.This is a messy and dynamic environment, in which the economy operates out [...]
Supply shock versus inflation. There’s a huge difference, both in terms of what causes each and how they play out. As discussed in great detail here, it is the bond market not central bankers which repeatedly has proved it can sort out this enormously consequential distinction. Bonds know if there is an overflow of money, they need to pay attention [...]
It was one of those signals which mattered more than the seemingly trivial details surrounding the affair. The name MF Global doesn’t mean very much these days, but for a time in late 2011 it came to represent outright fear. Some were even declaring it the next “Lehman.” While the “bank” did eventually fail, and the implications of it came [...]
The first half of 2021 was inundated with government helicopters, more QE’s, and then CPI’s put up with guarantees the “inflation” was going to continue for a long time. Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s often hapless CEO, proudly declared US Treasuries beyond the touch of any 10-foot pole. With the economy on fire, he “reasoned”, who would ever want safe and [...]
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