I wrote earlier today that I believe Ben Bernanke one of the smartest men around. Whatever you might think of the usefulness of his career work, it is quite clear it was accomplished with some great talent. He occasionally offered some good, novel insight. I’m not so sure about Janet Yellen. While her trademark deer-in-the-headlights look could have been explained [...]
The problem with the Federal Reserve is that it is corrupt. I don’t mean that its staff is busy filling their days thinking up ways to cheat the American taxpayer, rather it is a philosophical sort of debasement. Many people think the Fed is evil and nefarious, others that its policymakers are plain stupid. Neither of those is true. Ben [...]
On November 14, 1939, Israel Amter thundered to his large gathered audience that Josef Stalin was “the greatest leader and statesman of our time.” Not content with one mere exaggeration, Amter continued with the undisguised rhetoric, calling Stalin also “the wisest man on the face of the earth.” This wasn’t all that surprising given that Israel Amter was the New [...]
China’s Communist Party concluded the Third Plenum of its 18th Congress in November 2013. It was the much-discussed reform mandate that many in the West took to mean another positive step toward neo-liberal reform. At its center was supposed to be a greater role for markets particularly in the central task of resource allocation. In some places, the Party’s General [...]
For the second consecutive month, the Census Bureau estimates that sales of newly constructed homes fell year-over-year as well as month-over-month. The data provided by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) for the resale market suggests there isn’t nearly enough supply of homes for sale. Other estimates also published by Census Bureau (permits/starts) declare again that builders aren’t building new [...]
The nominal CMT yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note hit its low on July 8 last year. It’s debatable, of course, as to what turned it around; I think “reflation” from there began in Japan and all those whispers of the “helicopter.” It didn’t really matter that the BoJ didn’t really consider the proposition, what did instead was [...]
The erosion of social order in any historical or geographic context is gradual; until it isn’t. Germany has always followed a keen sense of this process, having experienced it to every possible extreme between the World Wars. Hyperinflationary collapse doesn’t happen overnight; it took three years for the Weimar mark to disintegrate, and then Weimar Germany. Even Nazism wasn’t all [...]
The Communist Chinese established their independence on September 21, 1949. The grand ceremony commemorating the political change was held in Tiananmen Square on October 1 that year. The following day, October 2, the Resolution on the National Day of the People’s Republic of China was passed making October 1to be China’s National holiday. It typically kicks off the second of [...]
The incoming economic data hasn't changed its tone all that much in the last several years. The US economy is growing but more slowly than it once did and we hope it does again. It is frustrating for economic bulls and bears, never fully satisfying either. Probably more important is the frustration of the average American, a dissatisfaction with the [...]
Back in 2014, the Federal Reserve was convinced that the labor market was better than it appeared to be in various data accounts. Though it was called the “best jobs market in decades”, researchers at the central bank were keen on showing it. Primarily lacking in wages and incomes, the labor segment was suspected of missing the very elements of [...]
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