Banking regulation is never easy. Shifting regimes and tightening things up a bit during a rip-roaring global economy, however, makes it much less stressful. Among global banking systems the one in India has lagged. Much of the rest of the world had moved on to higher capital requirements in addition to (sappy) liquidity constraints long ago so as to keep [...]
The enormous setback hadn’t yet been fully appreciated in March 2012 when China’s Premiere Wen Jiabao spoke to and on behalf of the country’s Communist governing State Council. Despite it having been four years since Bear Stearns had grabbed the whole world’s attention (for reasons the whole world wouldn’t fully comprehend, specifically as to why the whole world would need [...]
There were rumors and whispers of a trade truce between China and the US. Wages domestically grew by the most since 2009, better than 3% last month. OPEC is going to be cutting oil production again. And most of all, for the mainstream narrative anyway, the Fed is about to go on a break. Why didn’t markets react positively to [...]
The real question is why no one says anything. They can continue to make these grossly untrue, often contradictory statements without fear of having to explain themselves. Don’t even think about repercussions. Even in front of politicians ostensibly being there on behalf of the public, pedigree still matters more than results. It’s actually worse than that since all that I’m [...]
Unfortunately for Jay Powell, labor statistics are at best backward looking and often just plain misleading. Can you imagine if the wage data contained with November 2018’s payroll report had been released last December instead? Today, pretty much nobody cares anymore. We’ve flipped from inflation hysteria to inversion unease and that was always the appropriate direction. Average hourly earnings increased [...]
There’s no sign of inflation, markets are unsettled, and now new economic data keeps confirming that dark side. Forget each month, every day there is something else suggesting a slowdown. That much had been evident across much of the global economy, but this is now different. The US has apparently been infected, too, not that that is any surprise. That’s [...]
The first central banker to blink wasn’t Jay Powell it was Stephen Poloz. The Bank of Canada has been steadily raising its policy rate like the Fed, or had been. It was widely expected that Canada’s central bank would skip this last meeting but there was no doubt about another 25 bps increase next month. Instead, things are a little [...]
R-star is a fiction which like term premiums for interest rate decomposition allows Economists to skate past reality and onto their econometric blackboards. If there was a neutral rate, which R-star (or R*) proposes to be, why would there be only one and what good would knowing its level today do? In a dynamic world, if you figure out where [...]
On August 30, 2006, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported preliminary estimates for US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the second quarter. It was figured back then that domestic output increased 2.9% over the first quarter, seasonally adjusted, somewhat of a decrease from the robust start to 2006. Final estimates for Q1 thought the economy had advanced 5.6% during [...]
When the FOMC published the minutes for its November policy meeting, they included an unusually lengthy discussion about federal funds (effective) and IOER. I have no doubt that policymakers would rather have skipped the topic altogether. Demonstrating how little they actually control matters, the plight of EFF has forced them into an almost detailed digression. One thing they wrote with [...]
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