Problems aren’t supposed to be always intractable, are they? It has gone on so long that maybe long ago memories of minor adjustments are a bit fuzzy, but seemingly no matter what over the last decade every that issue arises and is met by the usual, standard efforts, is instead of being solved by them becomes another brick in the [...]
For once, it does seem like the FOMC was asking of its members the right question. They spent years incredulous over the lack of effect due to whatever of the multiple QE’s without changing expectations. No matter how little evidence for their initial let alone ongoing success, they would always, always keep up the “recovery is coming” narrative. In many [...]
According to Larry Summers, the Trump administration’s recently released budget contains a most heinous elementary error that disqualifies the whole thing and every single person involved in it. Apart from being hugely convenient for his side of the political debate, the error smells a little too familiar, or at least it should coming from Dr. Summers. Here is what he [...]
Two more manufacturing surveys suggest sharp deceleration in momentum, or, more specifically, the momentum of sentiment (if there is such a thing). The Federal Reserve’s 5th District Survey of Manufacturing (Richmond branch) dropped to barely positive, calculated to be just 1.0 in May following 20.0 in April and 22.0 in March. It follows an all-too-familiar pattern, where sentiment spiked to [...]
On March 24, 2009, then US President Barack Obama gave a prime time televised press conference whose subject was quite obviously the economy and markets. The US and global economy was at that moment trying to work through the worst conditions since the 1930’s and nobody really had any idea what that would mean. As President, Obama’s main task was [...]
As we move past all the calendar effects pressed to the front of each year, some trends are starting to come into view. Not only are there trends but a few round numbers, even. The Chinese monetary system is one that is predicated on “dollars”; not all in dollar-denominated assets, but the type of foreign reserves that are consistent with [...]
On December 3, 1999, Enron Communications announced that the company had begun operations selling bandwidth as an energy commodity. After publicizing the venture in May that year, it seemed natural given that they had been selling similar products in the energy sector, pioneering all sorts of products along the way. As the internet matured there was no way Enron would [...]
I don’t pay much attention to the 2 year part of the UST curve because I think it is susceptible to information spoilage, distortions that aren’t strictly related to what a “risk-free” 2s should tell us. But as my colleague Joe Calhoun often reminds me, just because I don’t think it as important doesn’t mean that other people see in [...]
What is truly frustrating is that only now is the world trying to come to terms with the last ten years, and only because it ignored the major, seismic developments over the preceding forty. It’s not a question of too little, too late, it’s more so that after being bludgeoned with failure there are no leaps of intuition, merely baby [...]
What is about math that makes us feel comforted? Numbers are objective, of course, but the using of numbers is not. Even in the hard sciences calculations are not strictly calculations for their own sake, they are interpreted and therefore given subjective meaning. I don’t intend to detour this argument into a teleological one, but in some ways that just [...]
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