Jeff Snider gives us an important history of the insanity of the Fed pretending to control the Fed Funds rate. On this point he and I agree. “It was less about money, nothing about money, really, and mostly about communications.”
Things were going wrong and afterward the very idea of wrong took on an even more disastrous nature.
Central bankers are not nimble traders. By their very bureaucratic nature, they leave big muddy footprints all over markets. Sometimes that is by design, a show of force to scare some evil speculators into going straight. Other times, it just can’t be helped. The way it works in China, the autocratic structure doesn’t leave much […]
There are things to feel optimistic about. I’ve been pegged as a doom and gloomer, and so long as things remain as they are, I don’t see what’s wrong about it.
It certainly doesn’t feel like a bubble. We’ve heard about home prices in many cities skyrocketing like there has been one, still there does seem to be something different. If it is a bubble, it sure isn’t the same as the last one, the big one fifteen years ago. Much is missing this time around. […]
It seems a paradox, at least like it is backwards. The financial media doesn’t help because good editorial standards rely upon the opinions and beliefs of credentialed people who have no idea what they are talking about. If you hold high office in some central bank, we are to assume you are competent about monetary […]
Globally synchronized growth is transitioning, slowly, into global synchronized contraction.
The latest batch of economic from China featured a little something for everyone. For those thinking about a second half rebound, retail sales gained nearly 10% in June. It was the first time near to double digits since March 2018. At the other end of the spectrum, Real GDP rose just 6.2% year-over-year in the […]
Things have changed, obviously. Chairman Powell and the rest of the FOMC, the majority anyway, have come around to rate cuts. Where they were hawkish in December, noncommittal as late as May, they’ve been spooked into them over the last month or so. As it stands, the first one is less than three weeks away. […]
Tucked away in a quiet little corner of the BIS publication library, a study was published in the organization’s September 2015 Quarterly Review. One of the biggest mysteries of that time was Chinese “capital flight.” It was breathtaking, and it would only get worse. What was really going on? Many if not most mainstream stories […]
