You don’t have to take my word for it. QE doesn’t work and it never has. That’s not just my assessment, pull out any chart of interest rates for wherever gets the misfortune of having been wasted with one of these LSAP’s. If none handy, then just read what officials and central bankers write about their own programs (or those [...]
The Chinese yuan had traded in a curiously narrow range ever since mid-June. Stuck, it seemed, between 6.50 at the bottom and around 6.45 ceiling, the lack of movement in either direction raised suspicions of concerted official effort. China’s officials, obviously, certainly not those from the Federal Reserve who spend all their time scouring drug reports and benefits cliffs so [...]
Thomas Barkin is President and CEO of the Federal Reserve’s Fifth District branch headquartered in Richmond. Beginning the job during the tumultuous and confusing 2018 (for those wherever at the Fed), Barkin in 2021 is and has been a voting FOMC member. Whether he is judged a “hawk”, “dove”, or some other kind of feathering maniac I’d leave to the [...]
What would it look like if the Treasury market was forced into a cross between 2013 and 2018? I think it might be something like late 2021. Before getting to that, however, we have to get through the business of decoding the yield curve since Economics and the financial media have done such a thorough job of getting it entirely [...]
Hurricane Ida swept up the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into the Louisiana coastline on August 29. The storm would continue to wreak havoc even as it weakened the further inland it traversed. By September 1 and 2, the system was still causing damage and disruption into the Northeast of the United States.While absolutely tragic for those who suffered its [...]
Maybe the problem is the slogans, though I seriously doubt it. There are, admittedly, way too many and perhaps there is something lost in the translation. Going from Chinese to English can be notoriously tricky, and by sheer number of official catchphrases odds are a few are going to be miscast at the very least. Rebalancing. Rejuvenation. Dual Circulation. No [...]
122.3 1970s stagflation? No! But NOT why you think...———Ep 122.3 Summary———"Despite some eerie echoes, the past is not the best guide to the present," writes The Economist. Jeff Snider agrees, but for entirely different reasons. Stagnation? Yes, definitely. But NOT inflation - despite the clear price increases! Wait, what?———Sponsor———Macropiece Theater with Alistair Cooke (i.e. Emil Kalinowski) reading the latest essays, [...]
A couple of Economists have caused some noise by reviewing consumer confidence estimates in the United States, associating big declines in them with imminent recession, and then pointing out such substantial drops in both of the major consumer sentiment surveys just recently. If valid, their correlations would seem to suggest a US contraction.We’re meant to take these seriously for one [...]
OK, so we went through the ways and reasons consumer price increases are not inflation, cannot be inflation, are nowhere near actual inflation, and what all that really means. The rate they’ve gone up hasn’t been due to an overactive Federal Reserve, so it has to be something else. This is why, though the bulge has been painful, it’s already [...]
122.2 Commodity Prices Are Telling Us This... ———Ep 122.2 Summary———We review palladium, copper and iron ore - all metals and minerals that peaked in value in May (lumber too). Some commodities continue to rise in value, specifically energy. How do we reconcile the deflationary/disinflationary former to the inflationary latter? Also, US auto sales. ———Sponsor———Macropiece Theater with Alistair Cooke (i.e. Emil Kalinowski) [...]
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