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The Real Euro Watch

By |2017-09-08T17:15:14-04:00September 8th, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Everyone is now a euro watcher. The European common currency’s exchange value against the dollar has been on the rise, to put it mildly. Despite decades of declaring floating currencies the optimal framework, it really is quite entertaining to watch the furor when these things actually float one way or the other. This recent trend has been attributed to the [...]

Why JPY?

By |2017-05-18T18:33:16-04:00May 18th, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

One of the most prominent features of the “rising dollar”, if not the “rising dollar” itself, was an almost out of control shortage in FX basis. Though cross currency basis swaps with Japan received all the attention, with very good reason, the basis was off against the euro, franc, and a host of other majors. These things happen from time [...]

To The Asian ‘Dollar’, And Then What?

By |2017-04-24T16:13:46-04:00April 24th, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The Bretton Woods system was intentionally set up to funnel monetary convertibility through official channels. The primary characteristic of any true gold standard is that any person who wishes can change paper claims into hard money. It was as much true in any one country as between those bound by the same legal framework (property). What might differ were the [...]

We Need To Define The ‘Shadows’, And All Parts of Them; or, ‘Rising Dollar’ Kills Another Recovery Narrative

By |2017-04-05T18:44:45-04:00April 5th, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

JP Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon caused a stir yesterday with his 45-page annual letter to shareholders. The phrase that gained him so much widespread attention was, “there is something wrong with the US.” Dimon mentioned secular stagnation and correctly surmised it was the right idea if for the wrong reasons. He then gave his own which included a litany of [...]

Again?

By |2017-03-20T17:39:22-04:00March 20th, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

It is more than interesting that Herbert Hoover has become the modern ideal of the liquidationist. In these very trying times, one is either that or a Keynesian, Hoover’s supposed opposite, an interventionist who believes there is no good in any recession or deflation at any time. To “prove” the superior foundations of the latter, the ideological associates of that [...]

Not Recession, Systemic Rupture – Again

By |2017-02-24T16:00:14-05:00February 24th, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

For the very few in the mainstream of economics who venture further back in history than October 1929, they typically still don’t go much last April 1925. And when they do, it is only to further bash the gold standard for its presumed role in creating the conditions for 1929. The Brits under guidance of Winston Churchill made a grave [...]

A New Frame Of Reference Is Really All That Is Necessary To Start With

By |2017-02-13T19:23:37-05:00February 13th, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

In the middle of 1919, the United States was beset by a great many imbalances. Having just conducted a wartime economy, almost everything before then had been absorbed by the World War I effort. With fiscal restraint subsumed by national emergency, inflation was the central condition. Given that the Federal Reserve was by then merely a few years old, no [...]

Where We Go From Here: Study MF Global

By |2017-01-06T17:51:51-05:00January 6th, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

It was announced yesterday that former New Jersey governor and one-time head of MF Global John Corzine won’t be allowed anywhere near clients in the futures business. Though a lifetime ban, the man is already 70 years old and the damage done. Perhaps there is some more comfort in the $5 million fine levied against him in addition to the [...]

One Small (But Important) View of ‘Dollars’ From Europe

By |2017-01-03T18:44:06-05:00January 3rd, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Nothing says “fixed” quite like bureaucrats responding to a past crisis they did not foresee (and in the case of European bureaucrats, actively denied while it was happening) by establishing more layers of bureaucracies to “prevent” it from happening again. It is the most predictable result in all of finance and money as the government acting so busily to assure [...]

The Increasingly Unpredictable Politics of Money

By |2016-12-06T19:15:00-05:00December 6th, 2016|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Since the ECB began the Public Sector Purchase Program (QE) in the middle of March 2015, it has purchased (through the end of November 2016) almost €1.2 trillion in securities from the financial sector. In addition to that, the central bank has bought €46.2 billion in corporate bonds, and €148 billion of covered bonds in a third iteration in that [...]

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