The monthly PCE and income figures that were released this week were already incorporated into the advance estimate for Q1 GDP. Given that March wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and that PCE within the GDP report was, that kind of gives you a sense for the serious deterioration in the US consumer; “unexpectedly.” If there is a [...]
Even factoring different sources, there is a decided bi-polar nature to views on Europe’s “recovery.” The slightest deviation from the straight, upward extrapolations of economists is cause for serious self-reflection of Europe internally. That should not be so unexpected, particularly given how economists have completely missed everything since 2007 (anyone remember de-coupling?). But with the ECB’s new QE, there is [...]
Both Keynesians and monetarists are almost entirely focused on demand, aiming squarely at spending as the means to economic growth. Since 2008, and really 2007, the amount of “stimulus” recorded in that attempt to beckon “aggregate demand” is unlike anything ever seen before. Trillions and trillions of QE-drawn magic have been unleashed as well as government deficits as large as [...]
These are strange economic times, with an undeclared (and unrequited) recovery existing apparently alongside an undeclared (and strengthening) recession. The economy is superficially partly one thing and partly the other, producing innumerable inconsistencies that should be more troubling than they are taken. Maybe that relates to the fact that almost six full years after the Great Recession was declared ended [...]
Japan continues to provide the best refutation of monetary policy as anything other than destructive. With its economy stripped bare of dynamic essentials after thirty years of the Bank of Japan’s “lead”, marginal changes are left as remnants of nothing more than monetary transmission. In the space of QQE, that has used up and destroyed what was left of Japan’s [...]
This post is actually a companion to the last, looking into the discrepancy of breakevens with the broader credit market, but I felt it deserved attention all its own. As noted in that prior discussion, there is little indication that credit markets are at all re-evaluating prospects for “inflation” and recovery. If anything, they remain curiously stubborn against it even if [...]
If we have learned anything from this period in economic and financial history, it should have been to take great care when using or expecting past correlations as valid. There are innumerable examples where that dynamic shift applies, but it seems especially relevant at the end of April 2015. The amount of space and pixels dedicated to the idea that [...]
There was no third consecutive quarterly liquidity event on April 15, but I think there was an observation of the same systemic crack that just didn’t, this time, go anywhere. I have been highlighting repo rates particularly during April where GC rates failed to reset as they had done after every other quarterly window dressing. This time was already notable [...]
I believe the phrase that is attaining Paul Krugman all these invitations to “consult” on economic failure is one that he has used pretty consistently for years. He says “deflationary vortex” and for a long while it was ignored as studious monetarists were busy inflating away; except that none of them, from the Fed to BoJ to the ECB, even [...]
I think we are getting an even better sense of what might be the most ironclad law of orthodox economics. It seems as if there is a nonlinear proportionality between the desperation in which the mainstream denies it and the farther away from recovery the economy becomes. Last year was full of denial, especially as it related to that “anomaly” [...]
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