While central banks would prefer to isolate oil prices as if in their own world with nothing at all to do with finance and economy more generally, it is oil prices that continue the disappointment connecting the “dollar” to the growing market (and therefore economic) wreck. Front month and spot crude prices had bounced around more favorably since the August [...]
Michal Kalecki was a Polish economist whose work in the 1930’s earned him (for what it may be worth) the distinction of being Keynes before Keynes. In other words, because Kalecki was publishing papers and giving lectures in Polish rather than English, his arrival at the same conclusions and outlooks before Keynes in the UK was largely unnoticed. He was [...]
When I wrote on Friday that I was encouraged for the first time in years over the combined rise of Trump and Sanders I meant nothing by way of suggesting either as an actual candidate or what they might do should they pull it out. If anything, I implied that the political situation might have to follow the economy; that [...]
If we go by the track of the “dollar” in setting economic expectations, we would expect to have seen a noticeable drop in economic activity in the first part of the year followed by a very tepid rebound lasting only a few months (“rebound” is too charitable of a qualifier, more like “not getting directly worse”). The ugly appearance of [...]
There is no bottom in sight yet for China. Despite five interest rate cuts and traditional interpretations of monetary “stimulus”, the economy continues to decelerate beyond mainline understanding. Industrial production was just 6.1% in August, marking the thirteenth consecutive month (counting January, which is combined with February due to China’s New Year) below 8%, while retail sales rose 10.8%. Fixed [...]
When grounded in the framework of traditional banking, wholesale dynamics can be quite confusing to the point of being impenetrable. Nowhere is that more the case than the wholesale ideas of currency and what counts for establishing chains of traded liabilities. In the traditional banking/monetary framework, everything is reducible to money; all else are just derivative claims on it. The [...]
As doubts surrounding QE have grown, there has been a somewhat detectable if still small trend in central banker repentance. Alan Greenspan to an extent has embraced a more decentralized and market framework in his public comments even though he has yet, to my knowledge, actually repudiate his own work more directly. As noted a few days ago, former BoE [...]
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 update to the S&P/LSTA Leveraged Loan Index was pretty much as expected following the interpretations I suggested Friday. Despite the alleviation of direct “dollar” pressure on liquidity subtracting from asset prices, there is a very distinct lack of enthusiasm to, at this point, rebid for margined assets or to pick up “bargains.” The index itself rebounded from a low [...]
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