It’s a clever bit of misdirection. In one of the last interviews he gave before passing away, Milton Friedman talked about the true strength of central banks. It wasn’t money and monetary policy, instead he admitted that what they’re really good at is PR. Maybe that’s why you really can’t tell the difference Greenspan to […]
In October 2011, the bank’s Chairman bristled at the characterization. His was not going to be a “bad bank” as many in the financial media had been saying. Pierre Mariani, chief executive of Belgium’s Dexia, preferred instead to call it the “residual bank.” No matter the label, the firm was being bailed out for the […]
It was a poignant moment that has gone totally unappreciated. Lost in the noise about subprime mortgages, on August 9, 2007, what actually happened that day represented perhaps the best example of how things worked. Or suddenly didn’t. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary, I recounted the tale of BNP Paribas. You’ve heard of […]
Even though it was everywhere, one of the primary things that struck me about the peak period for Reflation #3 was how ridiculous it got. If you have a strong argument, there’s no need for so much hyperbole. But it wasn’t just that, it had become openly ridiculous. Interest rates had nowhere to go but […]
Maybe this was inevitable. After all, it is how things work in a lot of other places. When all is lost, that last thing that happens is the lawyers come in and pick through the bones. Christine Lagarde has been nominated to replace Mario Draghi as the next head of Europe’s central bank. She has […]
The European slump had been a combination of several transitory factors. At least that’s what they had kept saying. ECB officials and staff Economists didn’t use that specific word, so far that’s the exclusive domain of the Federal Reserve. Regardless of semantics, the message was clear: the 2018 economy ended on a sour note but […]
It’s never about a single payroll report. Even still, there’s something significant in how the “good” ones aren’t measuring up the way they used to.
The US manufacturing sector may not be in as bad a shape as its German or Japanese counterparts, though it appears to be catching up on the downside. The Census Bureau reports today that new orders for all types of goods in all industries fell 1.6% year-over-year (unadjusted) in May 2019. This was the first […]
The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield closed below 2% for the first time since Donald Trump was elected President. Having flirted with that level several times over the past week, today the most-watched interest rate on the planet finally breached this one startling round number. And it comes during a week which by every conventional […]
Unable to tackle effective monetary requirements, bank regulators around the world turned to “macroprudential” approaches in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. It was mostly public relations, a way to assure the public that 2008 would never be repeated. A whole set of new rules was instituted which everyone was told would reign in […]
