To hear it told nowadays, you’d think that gold’s amazing run began when Jay Powell started cranking out bank reserves. Those telling the story equate those bank reserves to effective money printing, so it conforms to the conventional myth about gold’s relationship to the money supply (whatever that is). Throw in a federal government, every federal government, recklessly borrowing and [...]
Not this again. When you really have run out of ideas, just set something aside for a time and then when it comes time again simply dust it off and pretend it is new and inspired. You can make it sound great, so long as no one remembers and realizes just how tired and ridiculous it actually is.It’s almost as [...]
Foreigners are dumping their Treasuries! The Fed is monetizing the debt! The federal government has gone insane! Mass fiscal hysteria!Yet, yields on these things are comfortably within sight of their record lows as prices have never been higher. Supply is very obviously off-the-charts, but so, too, must be demand. Every time we hear about “too many” Treasuries the market yet [...]
Gold at $1800 an ounce has a lot of people you wouldn’t expect lining up in Jay Powell’s camp. What else could it be, right? Bullion is an inflation hedge, that’s what everyone says. Therefore, quite obviously, skyrocketing gold must indicate the dollar destruction gold aficionados are always predicting. Unbeknownst to them, and likely to agitate the hell out of [...]
The Federal Reserve has cut its QE purchasing pace, and yet the US Treasury Department doesn’t seem hampered by a shortage of bidders for its record-setting note auctions. Far from “too many” Treasuries, prices are once more unequivocal how there aren’t enough. With or without Powell, the auction record is clear and, unlike those constantly talking up the BOND ROUT!!! [...]
Little noticed at the time, October 2012 was quite the roller coaster. Most anyone cared about was QE3, the wonderful, awesome flood of liquidity kindly wise-man Chairman Bernanke had restarted for reasons that didn’t seem so important. Did it matter to the public that the repo market went haywire late in that very same month, at the very same time [...]
For awhile there, a few weeks anyway, the 30-year US Treasury long bond had become the star of the mainstream show. Showered with its 15 minutes of fame, everyone loved how, for once, it seemed to agree with Jay Powell and the preferred narrative about the effectiveness of his technocracy. The idiocy of this attention was exposed by just how [...]
It’s a behavioral shift, one we’ve seen before. Misunderstood because of idiocy like QE, even those who’ve undergone the change fail to appreciate the deeper meaning behind it. Not just at the firm-level, more so systemically. GFC1 had left everyone, even the best of businesses, essentially stranded fighting for their lives. Lost revenue was secondary to daily survival.Liquidity.Among the grandest [...]
So, you’re convinced that low rates are powerful stimulus. You believe, like any good standing Economist, that reduced interest costs can only lead to more credit across-the-board. That with more credit will emerge more economic activity and, better, activity of the inflationary variety. A recovery, in other words. Ceteris paribus. What happens, however, if you also believe you’ve been responsible [...]
It’s called survivor’s or survival euphoria. Having just gone through a traumatically dangerous experience, and lived, a person might naturally become euphoric for it. Not uncommon in combat situations, your body marshals all its resources including many physiological responses and counteractions. When it’s all over, there’s evolution working overtime in your brain rewarding these survival instincts.And it can be a [...]
Stay In Touch