After years of futility, he was sure of the answer. The Bank of Japan had spent the better part of the roaring nineties fighting against itself as much as the bubble which had burst at the outset of the decade. Letting fiscal authorities rule the day, Japan’s central bank had largely sat back introducing what it said was stimulus in [...]
They merely repeat the words, as it is intended. With major fanfare and widespread praise, the Federal Reserve weeks ago had announced it was going to buy corporate bonds. Well, not actual bonds but ETFs. It hasn’t bought a single one of those, either, at least not until today and yet the program is being assigned the usual magical properties. [...]
From a monetary policy perspective, smooth is what you are aiming for. What central bankers want in this age of expectations management is for a little bit of steady inflation. Why not zero? Because, they decided, policymakers need some margin of error. Since there is no money in monetary policy, it takes time for oblique “stimulus” signals to feed into [...]
Compared to every other manufacturer, Kia’s production facilities in Mexico were positively booming. According to that country’s Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI), last month the Korean carmaker produced 1,907 of its Forte model. Yet, that small amount accounted for more than half of all light vehicles assembled during the month of April 2020.For the whole country.When statistical agencies [...]
The military phase was an all-out joke. Carlos Castillo Armas had fewer than 500 men as his “invasion” force. Yet, with only that many he had expected to take back the entire country. More surprisingly, he succeeded. Lt. Colonel Armas had previously participated in the 1944 Guatemala uprising that had forced Jorge Ubico from power. As a supporter and close [...]
iTunes: https://apple.co/3czMcWN Google-cast: https://shorturl.at/fpsEJ Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3arP8mY Alhambra-tube: https://youtu.be/S1qjswZdisM Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffSnider_AIP Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmilKalinowski Art: https://davidparkins.com/ [Emil's Summary] The monetary system is missing of money. Expectation of its return is no longer enough; actual recreation of modern money is needed. That job belongs to the private sector, the banks. It was true of the 1930s, and true of present day.Quantitative easing, [...]
Is it really that simple? The central bank hands out “free” money or “supports” markets with purchases, so that’s all there is to it. Once Jay Powell or Christine Lagarde moves in with the big bazookas, who’s not going to climb on board the money train as it rockets out of the inflation station?If only Weimar was that easy. Easy [...]
Is it already priced in? Depends, of course, on who you ask and more importantly which market is carrying out the presumed discounting. Stocks surged on the idea that though this is epic in its misery we’re already getting past the worst. Short run disruption, a big one, but nothing more. It’s almost preprogrammed at this point: the data for [...]
It was another one of those good news, bad news data days in China. Unfortunately, the good news just doesn’t make much sense. That was Chinese exports which, according to the country’s General Administration of Customs, increased by 4.5% year-over-year in April 2020. Given the state of the world last month, exports were expected to drop by 12 to 14% [...]
There are two parts behind the inflation mongering. The first, noted yesterday, is the Fed’s balance sheet, particularly its supposedly monetary remainder called bank reserves. The central bank is busy doing something, a whole bunch of something, therefore how can it possibly turn out to be anything other than inflationary?The answer: the Federal Reserve is not a central bank, not [...]
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