An interesting side benefit of the Fed having pegged interest rates effectively to zero and having accomplished so little with QE, is that we get to see markets' self-correcting tendency. Consider what has happened over the last year or so since the Fed made it clear their goal was to start normalizing policy, i.e. raise interest rates. As I've pointed [...]
The Federal Reserve left interest rates at 0 after their 2 day policy meeting this week. Less concerning, they lowered the forecast for future rates. We have red and green street lights. Why? Because society finds it beneficial that people using our streets aren't speeding through an intersection from both directions at the same time. We have laws against stealing. Why? [...]
Well, thank goodness that's over. The Fed met last week and decided to maintain the Fed funds rate in the 0 - 0.25% range in which it has been confined since the great financial crisis of 2008. Of course, the fed funds market is essentially kaput having been usurped by the Fed itself during the crisis so the rate charged [...]
In February 2010, Bank of England chief Mervyn King was very worried about the fragile nature of the British recovery as it fit within the more nebulous global hoard. There were emerging threats from an “unexpected” setback over a tiny little country on the Aegean, perhaps depressing Europe so soon out of the depths of the global Great Recession. Mervyn [...]
When the Bank of Japan announced on October 31, 2014, that it would increase the scale of QQE to ¥80 trillion annually, it noted the usual surfeit words that have clearly been passed around to everyone within network connectivity of the central axis of orthodox economics. You can honestly close your eyes and have someone read aloud the text and [...]
The relevant part about eurodollars these days is that the term itself is a misnomer, or at the very least not a comprehensive description. “Eurodollar” itself is not necessarily a dollar (or even “dollar”) that originates from Europe, though it has been European banks that have formed the backbone participation for decades. The word is shorthand for any “dollar” that [...]
The Jackson Hole gathering may end up providing at least some clarification, but not even close to the manner in which everyone seems intent on inferring. With Janet Yellen’s notable absence, there isn’t the same sort of celebrity about what would have been the media hanging upon every word; that is, after all, what the Federal Reserve has become, not [...]
Let's start this week's missive off with a disclosure of sorts - I am not Joe Calhoun. Unlike Joe, I have managed to hold on to my hair over the years although the last week has been challenging in that regard. Joe and his lovely wife, Fay, took an extended weekend off and headed towards Key West (a trip planned [...]
Let’s start by stipulating that the ECB’s operations are far more complex. This is the case both in terms of actual operations but also in trying to figure out what goes where and why. That is at the start unsurprising given the European monetary framework; even though the euro as a denomination is continental there are still national fissures in [...]
The oft-leveled charge against politicians in DC is that they are “out of touch.” Such desultory description is often deserved, however, so it isn’t really cliché so much as connecting republican (small “r”) values through time. In the case of the 2015 economy, however, the idea that the economists sitting on the FOMC board (and their academic statisticians) aren’t in [...]
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