Weekly Market Pulse: The Crypto Distraction
It was hard not to hear about cryptocurrencies last week what with the bear market and all. Actually, you can make the case that bitcoin has had two bear markets since mid-April. There was a 27% decline followed by a 27% rally, followed by last week's rout. From its intraday peak in April to its intraday low last week, bitcoin [...]
Chilling Global Wind Blowing Stronger: Chilly In Chile
For Episode 74.0 of Eurodollar University’s Making Sense, Emil and I were incredibly honored and thrilled to have been able to bring on Allison Fedirka from Geopolitical Futures, the outfit of George Friedman fame. Specifically, we were interested in her specialty which is Latin America because after China that’s where you want to go next to understand how developments money [...]
Eurodollar University’s Making Sense; Episode 75, Part 2: Yeah, The Fed Had Screwed Up T-bills And They Know It
75.2 Fed 'admits' Negligence, Monetary Malpractice ———Ep 75.2 Summary——— It's never what they say, it's what they do. For months before March 2020's collateral-centered blowup, GFC2, we regularly chastised Jay Powell's not-QE(5) program for doing the opposite of what would've been helpful. They bought T-bills and only T-bills. But then, right in the thick of the meltdown, the Fed stopped [...]
Eurodollar University’s Making Sense; Episode 75, Part 1: The *Deflationary* Case of Obscene Government Debt
75a A Rise in Prices or a Rise in Dictators or Both ———Ep 75.1 Summary——— FDR claimed, correctly, he maintained a balanced budget throughout his years in office. With the exception of "emergency" items, that is. Influenced by several famed economists, Roosevelt entered the Presidency a fiscal hawk only to have his mind changed by the gravity of the situation. [...]
The Vast Majority (not) Inflation Case
Global factors. Both for inflation as well as money, in fact money therefore inflation. Only recently, yesterday, in fact, has the Federal Reserve pulled back the official curtain of silence and illiteracy if only a little to admit there’s so much more than what you’ve ever been told. Bank reserves aren’t the end of the story, especially in light of [...]
Inflation Huge: Jay Powell Did Blink, But It Had *Nothing* To Do With ‘Taper’
As usual, the focus went to the exact wrong place. In most people’s minds, the idea hammered home by the uniformly compliant financial press, it’s all about inflation and accommodative Federal Reserve policy. According to the current popular breeze, this along with Uncle Sam’s uncontrollable check-writing vigor has put the economy on course to overheating if not drastically so.Didn’t you [...]
Wait, How Much In LTRO’s?
Long-term Refinancing Operations (LTRO) became a standard non-standard monetary policy tool in the European Central Bank’s (ECB) toolkit late in 2011. A second confounding (global) banking crisis had struck yet again catching global policymakers with their pants down, this one seemingly centered directly upon Europe. On December 8, 2011, amidst constant rumors (probably real) that two of the major European [...]
The Chinese Money Behind Global Inflation Baseball
China’s economy is nowhere near recovered from 2020’s steep recession, yet, contrary to textbook demands, the Chinese central bank is winding down its support. This is especially important given that monetary policy last year hadn’t actually been all that supportive to begin with (see below). The two major money outlets, currency and bank reserves, were allowed a noticeable yet only [...]
TIC Reflation Rolling (Over?)
There was a lot off good stuff in the March 2021 TIC data. Given that Q1 2021 was the most solidly reflationary since the recession and GFC2, we find the same across most of its headline data. From UST buying (while bonds were in general selling off and yields were rising; more on this in a minute) overall to bank [...]
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