impoverishment

They Really Should Begin to Model The Inverse

By |2014-08-20T12:08:08-04:00August 20th, 2014|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

As I noted yesterday with US housing construction, there has been a very unusual amount of emphasis added to the month-to-month changes of various indications. Maybe that is no more than normal, but it seems as if the confidence displayed in the minutiae has been amplified. Given the circumstances, that is both understandable and reprehensible at the same time. The [...]

Consumer Credit Still Fails To Finish The Equation

By |2014-08-11T16:25:52-04:00August 11th, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

For now, it seems as if the attempt to recreate 2005 is being born by revolving credit. There was, until the middle of last year, the holdover hope for the then-burgeoning mini-bubble in real estate, but events since the taper-driven bond selloff have conspired against that factor. While revolving credit might represent a restarted channel for monetary intrusiveness, the primary [...]

Japan’s ‘Surge’ Undone

By |2014-06-27T12:00:01-04:00June 27th, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The juxtaposition of the official unemployment rate in Japan against wage gains (losses, more precisely) raises an interesting and potentially debilitating conundrum. More workers are being employed inside Japan, but the average pay rate clearly is falling for new jobs. This, of course, sounds very familiar to Americans that have seen exactly that process play out in our versions of [...]

Unfiltered and Unrefined QE

By |2014-04-30T09:41:06-04:00April 30th, 2014|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The interest in the plight of the Japanese and “their” economy is not just one of morbid curiosity, but of high relevance and perhaps even a glimpse of the future. It is both a cautionary tale about the command economy and, at the same time, a warning about such apathy derived from the failure to demand something different, or even [...]

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