In early 2005, the US Senate began debating a bill seeking to impose a broad 27.5% tariff on Chinese exports to the United States. Congress was emotionally moved by the supposed problem of pegging the yuan to the dollar, then at about 8.28 CNY for every USD. In reality, the problem wasn’t so much dollars as “dollars”, meaning that because [...]
The inconsistency or unevenness of the economic data is a huge part of the problem. The world wants to move in nice, clean straight lines and nowhere is that more of an assumption than economics. There is some allowance for variation but that is always expected to be minimal. The past four years or so just haven’t seen much deference [...]
You’ll have to forgive the Chinese if they view “global turmoil” as something far more than an esoteric financial concept to be debated by irrelevant monetary committees. US imports from China fell 4.3% year-over-year in May 2016, the third consecutive contraction and seventh out of the last eight months. With February’s 16% gain more a calendar/holiday illusion, especially since it [...]
So the FOMC voted against another rate hike yesterday, which in itself deserves no comment. Not even Esther George could muster a dissent as she has done nine of the previous eleven times. Notably the last time Ms. George voted with the all the rest of the committee against the symbolic raising of the irrelevant federal funds rate was the [...]
It makes for yet another huge dichotomy, but one which is curiously absent from any mainstream commentary. As noted earlier today, Chinese imports were pleasantly surprising for the mainstream as they were just about flat year-over-year. The fact that oil imports surged by nearly 40% seemed only to confirm that whatever might be happening on the export side (another dichotomy [...]
Chinese imports fell for the 19th consecutive month in May, but it was the pace of the latest decline that has stirred (yet again) so much optimism. Year-over-year, Chinese imports were down just 0.4%, beating expectations for a 6% drop. From that, as you can guess, the media is awash in commentary that “stimulus” is working, meaning the recovery is [...]
Ten days ago, it was reported that the Bank of Japan for the first time set aside reserves against expected losses should its massive portfolio of JGB’s finally move toward QQE success. The main part of all this “stimulus” has been the accumulation of primarily government bonds at massive premiums. If it were ever to actually work, then the Japanese [...]
Last week, Japan reported GDP growth of 1.7% in Q1. That was much better than expected and led to all the usual extrapolations about how bright the future is in Japan now that QQE is working (and NIRP since that was started during the quarter). In this devalued economic world of central banking for the sake of central banking, context [...]
We often think of liquidation events exclusively in terms of price, but in the real economy there is volume to consider. When financing dries up as financial agents run for cover lest they receive only further margin or collateral calls, it enacts a short run disruption in economic flow. At the margins, some firms are forced to delay activity while [...]
It is absolutely clear that the eurodollar system last functioned on August 8, 2007. Starting August 9, nothing would ever be the same. In describing and detailing how it got that way (the sudden fragmentation between “dollars” in NYC and London, for example) there is a natural tendency to compartmentalize even realizing the drastic implications of what it all meant. [...]
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