What connects March 2020 with February 2008 as well as the Crash of ’87 all then with the Great Contraction which initiated the Great Depression? If you said economic and financial chaos, you’d be partly right. There wasn’t really much or any of that in 1987, though there was with the other three. People including politicians and central bankers don’t [...]
iTunes: https://apple.co/3czMcWN Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3arP8mY Google: https://shorturl.at/fpsEJ Alhambra-tube: https://youtu.be/qb_ylacLPMc Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffSnider_AIP Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmilKalinowski Art: https://davidparkins.com/ [Emil's Summary] On September 21, 1897 the The Sun, a newspaper out of New York, printed an editorial in response to a letter from eight-year old Virginia O'Hanlon. "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," came the reply. In that tradition, Making Sense presents episode eight, in which we [...]
The monetary mouse. After years of Mario Draghi claiming everything under the sun available with the help of QE and the like, Christine Lagarde came in to the job talking a much different approach. Suddenly, chastened, Europe’s central bank needed assistance. So much for “do whatever it takes.”They did it – and it didn’t take.Lagarde’s outreach was simply an act [...]
After years of futility, he was sure of the answer. The Bank of Japan had spent the better part of the roaring nineties fighting against itself as much as the bubble which had burst at the outset of the decade. Letting fiscal authorities rule the day, Japan’s central bank had largely sat back introducing what it said was stimulus in [...]
They merely repeat the words, as it is intended. With major fanfare and widespread praise, the Federal Reserve weeks ago had announced it was going to buy corporate bonds. Well, not actual bonds but ETFs. It hasn’t bought a single one of those, either, at least not until today and yet the program is being assigned the usual magical properties. [...]
From a monetary policy perspective, smooth is what you are aiming for. What central bankers want in this age of expectations management is for a little bit of steady inflation. Why not zero? Because, they decided, policymakers need some margin of error. Since there is no money in monetary policy, it takes time for oblique “stimulus” signals to feed into [...]
Compared to every other manufacturer, Kia’s production facilities in Mexico were positively booming. According to that country’s Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI), last month the Korean carmaker produced 1,907 of its Forte model. Yet, that small amount accounted for more than half of all light vehicles assembled during the month of April 2020.For the whole country.When statistical agencies [...]
The military phase was an all-out joke. Carlos Castillo Armas had fewer than 500 men as his “invasion” force. Yet, with only that many he had expected to take back the entire country. More surprisingly, he succeeded. Lt. Colonel Armas had previously participated in the 1944 Guatemala uprising that had forced Jorge Ubico from power. As a supporter and close [...]
iTunes: https://apple.co/3czMcWN Google-cast: https://shorturl.at/fpsEJ Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3arP8mY Alhambra-tube: https://youtu.be/S1qjswZdisM Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffSnider_AIP Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmilKalinowski Art: https://davidparkins.com/ [Emil's Summary] The monetary system is missing of money. Expectation of its return is no longer enough; actual recreation of modern money is needed. That job belongs to the private sector, the banks. It was true of the 1930s, and true of present day.Quantitative easing, [...]
Is it really that simple? The central bank hands out “free” money or “supports” markets with purchases, so that’s all there is to it. Once Jay Powell or Christine Lagarde moves in with the big bazookas, who’s not going to climb on board the money train as it rockets out of the inflation station?If only Weimar was that easy. Easy [...]
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