At every discipline human beings have ever conceived, a fresh face or new look is almost always welcome whenever it reaches the inevitable sticking point or true rough patch. We have a word for such people in the 21st century, as an entire industry of consultants has sprung up to provide just such an outside perspective to organizations or endeavors [...]
There is no argument that the New Deal of the 1930’s completely changed the political situation in America, including the fundamental relationship of the government to its people. The way it came about was entirely familiar, a sense from among a large (enough) portion of the general population that the paradigm of the time no longer worked. It was only [...]
There isn’t a day that goes by in 2017 where some study is released or anecdote is published purporting a sinister labor market development. There is a shortage of workers, we are told, often a very big one. The idea is simple enough; the media has been writing for years that the US economy was recovering, and they would very [...]
Correctly interpreting the bond market is more than just how and when to invest your money in UST’s. Not that it isn’t useful in such a money management capacity, but interest rates starting at the risk-free tell us a lot about what is wholly unseen. There is simply no way to directly observe inside an economy what is taking place [...]
Nothing ever goes in a straight line. For every rally there will inevitably be a retracement, a minor selloff often of no more than profit taking. These are generally pauses where a durable trend either overcomes doubts, or succumbs to them. In the stock market, they call it the wall of worry. In bonds, it’s become a bit more complicated. [...]
There is gold in Asia, at least gold of the intellectual variety for anyone who wishes to see it. The Chinese offer us perhaps the purest view of monetary conditions globally, where RMB money markets are by design tied directly to “dollar” behavior. It is, in my view, enormously helpful to obsess over China’s monetary system so as to be [...]
The cruelest part, perhaps, of this economic condition globally is how it plays against type. In all prior cycles, economies of all kinds and orientations all over the globe would go into recession and then bounce right of it once at the bottom. It was often difficult to see the bottom, of course, but once recovery happened there was no [...]
For Ben Bernanke, characterizing a successful tenure is exceedingly hard. Afterward writing a memoir about his time at the Fed, however, made such a task a necessary one. Given so few options from which to define his legacy, the former Chairman decided very carefully about how to frame his efforts. And still all he could come up with was a [...]
Dating all the way back to February 11 and the Chinese turn on the “dollar”, the eurodollar futures curve had been stuck in a relatively narrow range. That trading band was widened a bit in June before and after Brexit (related to CNY’s regular mid-year drop), with futures on the whole curve bid up to early July and then slightly [...]
Where are we in history when the avowed Socialist (capital “S”) from Vermont is the only voice of reason for the Democratic Party in the aftermath of last week’s election? I don’t intend to make this some kind of political screed against one party or the other; I am on record numerous times claiming the America we live in of [...]
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