The US Treasury auctioned off $45 billion in 3-month (13w) bills this morning. Despite the Federal Reserve paying 5 bps for SOMA UST collateralized, for “some” reason the primary market’s players wanted this issue far more. The auction’s high was just 3.5 bps, its median 2.5. These are down from 4 bps and 3.5 bps, respectively, last Monday. With the [...]
Some wanted to call it China’s Bear Stearns, and over time it may end up being seen that way. And that would be the right way to see it. What Bear’s March 2008 demise had represented was the watershed event for the eurodollar system, the final straw which finally broke the camel’s back. In the same way, CNY's was broken [...]
99.3 US Dollar Gains Value - Bad News for the World ———Ep 99.3 Summary———In 1971, US Treasury Secretary John Connally told a group of European finance ministers that the US dollar "is our currency, but your problem." Half a century later, the problem has grown bigger encompassing the whole world. A world that is short of dollars. ———See It——— Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffSnider_AIPTwitter: https://twitter.com/EmilKalinowskiAlhambra [...]
As usual, a couple of additional odds and ends leftover from TIC that are worth a few brief mentions. And then a reminder of the caveats which come along with them (and all the interpretations). 1. First up, China. According to the latest TIC data, mainland China added a few billion to its UST holdings during July 2020, while those [...]
The first seeds of the eventual eurodollar bloom, in domestic US terms, were sown all way back in sixteen – as in the year 1916. Believe it or not, the Federal Reserve Act, then only a few years old, had been modified so that banking syndicates (those able to raise the princely sum of $1 million capital) could form what [...]
99.2 LABOR SHORTAGE! A Fed 'Get out of Jail Free' card ———Ep 99.2 Summary———Labor shortages are normal, at the microscale, from time to time, in this or that industry. Yet since 2008, establishment economists use "labor shortage" as an excuse to: A) support a misleadingly low unemployment rate and, B) explain away the participation problem. ———See It——— Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffSnider_AIPTwitter: https://twitter.com/EmilKalinowskiAlhambra YouTube: https://bit.ly/2Xp3royEmil YouTube: https://bit.ly/310yisLArt: https://davidparkins.com/ [...]
According to the movie The Princess Bride, the worst classic blunder anyone can make is to get involved in a land war in Asia. No kidding. The second is something about Sicilians and death. There is also, I’ve come to learn, an unspoken third which cautions against chasing down and then trying to break down seasonal adjustments in economic data.Some [...]
99.1 What's Killing Labor Force Participation in the USA? ———Ep 99.1 Summary———'Maybe the economy isn't in as good a condition as you economists / academics / technocrats think it is,' says the labor force participation rate. 'The economy is in fantastic shape,' says the unemployment rate. Which one is correct? ———See It——— Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffSnider_AIPTwitter: https://twitter.com/EmilKalinowskiAlhambra YouTube: https://bit.ly/2Xp3royEmil YouTube: https://bit.ly/310yisLArt: https://davidparkins.com/ ———Hear It——— Vurbl: https://bit.ly/3rq4dPnApple: https://apple.co/3czMcWNDeezer: https://bit.ly/3ndoVPEiHeart: https://ihr.fm/31jq7cITuneIn: http://tun.in/pjT2ZCastro: https://bit.ly/30DMYzaGoogle: https://bit.ly/3e2Z48MSpotify: https://spoti.fi/3arP8mYPandora: https://pdora.co/2GQL3QgBreaker: https://bit.ly/2CpHAFOCastbox: https://bit.ly/3fJR5xQPodbean: https://bit.ly/2QpaDghStitcher: https://bit.ly/2C1M1GBPlayerFM: https://bit.ly/3piLtjVPodchaser: https://bit.ly/3oFCrwNPocketCast: https://pca.st/encarkdtSoundCloud: https://bit.ly/3l0yFfKListenNotes: https://bit.ly/38xY7pbAmazonMusic: https://amzn.to/2UpEk2PPodcastAddict: https://bit.ly/2V39Xjr ———Ep 99.1 [...]
The American people were first introduced to the Treasury helicopter in 2008, not 2021. The Bush Administration's “radical” approach to keeping the Great “Recession” from becoming a contraction, obviously, failed spectacularly even though the initial returns had been positive – literally positive in how Q2 ’08 GDP suddenly turned higher as if this was by skilled design. Economists, including those [...]
Those pesky base effects. For most of the world’s economic data, these have contributed much to creating the misimpression the global economy is doing well, if not on fire. By comparing data now (or a month ago) to the same a year earlier, boy can it look splendid. In the stock business, they’re called easy comps.The Chinese, however, have just [...]
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