I may have to rethink my opinion of Christine Lagarde. It just may be that after helming one serious debacle after another, she – unlike most in her position – may have learned a thing or two about being too quick to call it a day. Premature celebrations were the hallmark of central banks throughout the last fifteen years, including, [...]
Sentiment indicators like PMI’s are nice and all, but they’re hardly top-tier data. It’s certainly not their fault, these things are made for very times than these (piggy-backing on the ISM Manufacturing’s long history without having the long history). Most of them have come out since 2008, if only because of the heightened professional interest in macroeconomics generated by a [...]
Germany’s flash July 2021 inflation estimate came in hot yesterday, boosted mostly by comparisons to July 2020’s VAT-free situation. That country’s CPI is a robust sounding 3.8% year-over-year this month, though only 3.1% in its flash HICP terms. Despite Deutschland’s oversized contribution and influence, Eurostat reports today how for Europe as a whole there was a whole lot of little [...]
While capital “E” economics can never seem to get out of its own, infatuated with statistics and regressions instead, small “e” economics is proven time and again. Simple supply and demand curves aren’t a realistic simulation of potential conditions, yet they are far more helpful than DSGE models even if highly stylized representations. Take, for example, lumber prices. Anyone remotely [...]
Because it worked out so well for Jay Powell? No. They have no idea what to do now. Zero. And they are out of ideas. I’m writing about the ECB here, but it begins first with the Federal Reserve Flustered by years of a very low unemployment rate stuck several points below where “full employment” had been estimated as late [...]
The monetary mouse. After years of Mario Draghi claiming everything under the sun available with the help of QE and the like, Christine Lagarde came in to the job talking a much different approach. Suddenly, chastened, Europe’s central bank needed assistance. So much for “do whatever it takes.”They did it – and it didn’t take.Lagarde’s outreach was simply an act [...]
Following along the same top-down model, what unites central bankers and socialists is equality. Handing over significant authority to either results in everyone being equally impoverished. And, therefore, those very authorities fighting over minute scraps so as to display some sense of accomplishment.In October 2015, safely nested within the cozy confines of Brookings, being paid handsomely to opine on matters [...]
It’s just Germany. It’s just industry. The excuses pile up as long as the downturn. Over across the Atlantic the situation has only now become truly serious. The European part of this globally synchronized downturn is already two years long and just recently is it becoming too much for the catcalls to ignore. Central bankers are trying their best to, [...]
The coronavirus began during December, but in its early stages no one knew a thing about it. It wasn’t until January 1 that health authorities in China closed the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market after initially determining some wild animals sold there might have been the source of a pneumonia-like outbreak. On January 5, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issued a [...]
As France’s Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde objected strenuously to Ben Bernanke’s second act. Hinted at in August 2010, QE2 was finally unleashed in November to global condemnation. Where “trade wars” fill media pages today, “currency wars” did back then. The Americans were undertaking beggar-thy-neighbor policies to unfairly weaken the dollar. The neighbor everyone though most likely to be sponged off [...]
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