Ross Perot famously declared the “giant sucking sound” in the 1992 Presidential campaign. The debate over NAFTA did not end with George H. W. Bush’s defeat, as it simmered in one form or another for much of the 1990’s. Curiously, however, it seemed almost perfectly absent during the 2000’s, the very decade in which Perot’s prophecy came true. Americans didn’t [...]
Though we may think of modern economies as being modern and perhaps disassociated with some of the more primitive aspects of the past, there remain to this day seasonal fractures in economy and finance. When the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, for example, its first task was “currency elasticity” which may not have been what we think about as [...]
If the economy is repeating the after-effects of the latest “dollar” events, and it does seem more and more to be that case, then analysis starts with identifying a range for where it might be in the repetition. New orders for durable goods (ex transportation) rose 4.3% year-over-year in January 2017 (NSA, only 2.4% SA), the highest growth rate since [...]
I have no idea if Sir John Bond, former head of HSBC, is or was superstitious, but if he wasn’t maybe it would have helped the bank if had been. In November 2002, the British bank announced a huge American purchase, buying Household International for $14.2 billion in HSBC stock. This was no small thing at that time, the stock [...]
For the very few in the mainstream of economics who venture further back in history than October 1929, they typically still don’t go much last April 1925. And when they do, it is only to further bash the gold standard for its presumed role in creating the conditions for 1929. The Brits under guidance of Winston Churchill made a grave [...]
Is Mexico about to go down the same road as China, Brazil, and so many others have the past few years? The more interesting question may be what took so long, if they are. Mexico’s central bank has been forced into action again, after interjecting itself last month supplying dollars directly to Mexican banks, as well as the same in [...]
Rather than bury this chart in my earlier discussion of liquidity preferences, I felt it deserved its own piece to highlight what it shows. By all traditional and orthodox Economics, this just should not be possible. Yet, there it is and it’s not the only example of violation. For very different markets as robust as each one is, there should [...]
There was an extremely odd dynamic for monetary policy during the 1990’s and especially in the United States. The less Alan Greenspan said, the more markets were convinced he knew what he was doing. He purposefully said nothing, being attributed years later with developing this “fedspeak.” So long as he continued to say nothing, the more he would have to [...]
If more people desire a certain thing, in a free market the price of that certain thing will go up regardless of any possible inherent value. Indeed, that is how market consensus is supposed to work, the backbone of efficient markets. I don’t believe that markets are or ever can be perfectly efficient, especially in the current age where assumptions [...]
The hedge fund industry is not quite dead yet, meaning that it can still cause a great deal of disruption before it expires. It is here where things like rehypothecation and the bastardization of prime brokerage functions were perfected, such that we might use that term in this manner. Despite so much outward attention paid in this direction, very little [...]
Stay In Touch