Chinese officials reported that exports fell 6.1% in December, following a downward revised 1.5% decline in November that was originally reported as a 0.1% gain. While the media talks about disappointment after it appeared Chinese exports might have been finally breaking out, and therefore global growth, December’s result simply continues the same pattern repeating over and over again. Over the [...]
The term “brick and mortar” has come to be a mostly 21st century antonym for online shopping. It was first used in the banking industry as far back as the early 1970’s. Banks led the adoption of innovations, foreseeing the possible gains in communication technology and not just in the eurodollar context of “floating” currency (shadow banking). Computerization even at [...]
It may seem strange that one of the primary forces behind the Bretton Woods arrangement was John Maynard Keynes. That is because what goes on in his name today is often nothing like what he proposed. This is not an endorsement of those ideas, only recognition and deep appreciation that during the worst consequences of the worst kinds of economic [...]
The Federal Reserve reported this week that consumer credit increased by $24.5 billion in November, the largest expansion since August and one of the biggest monthly changes in the data series. Non-revolving credit was actually subdued at least as compared to what has become typical. Revolving credit, on the other hand, surged by $11 billion. That was nearly as much [...]
Then-Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before Congress on May 22, 2013, that taper was for officials a strong consideration. Though QE4, the UST portion of the restored balance sheet expansion, wasn’t yet six months old and he had promised, sort of, at the start of QE3 that both would be open-ended, sort of, his message to the legislature was [...]
The updated estimates from the BLS for its JOLTS data largely confirm observations from other labor markets figures. The rate of Job Openings in November 2016 was slightly more than October, but still not appreciably different than what it has been over the past two years. The JOLTS survey indicated Job Openings first reached 5.5 million for the first time [...]
If the groundhog can tell us the length of winter by simply appreciating his own shadow, China’s central bank can perform something of a similar exercise and interpretation about the global eurodollar condition. The panic response of the PBOC is to immediately peg its currency, CNY, whenever a global monetary storm of sufficient fury arrives. Thus, if the PBOC sees [...]
At the start of this new year, a new law took effect in Illinois which required hairdressers to obtain training in domestic abuse prevention. Hairdressers. The seeds of the idea were where any stylist in the state would take advantage of what is presumed a very close relationship between a woman and the person, presumed also to be a woman, [...]
For all the fuss about speculators in Hong Kong, China’s central bank doesn’t seem very capable of handling them. Last week the offshore RMB money rate was driven once more to ridiculous proportions, with conventional “wisdom” attributing it to intentional PBOC policy. That seemed to be the case on Thursday, where the overnight HIBOR rate (CNH) was 38.335%, but not [...]
With two months of an increasing index, the Federal Reserve’s alternate, comprehensive factor model for the labor market turned negative again for December 2016. The Labor Market Conditions Index (LMCI) was down 0.3 points after gaining an upwardly revised 2.1 in November. Though there are 19 components in the overall index, the lackluster headline number for the Establishment Survey as [...]
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