It used to be that if the US sneezed, the whole world would catch cold. Placed in terms of how the global economy worked, the point was easily made that US demand pretty much directed how it would fare for everyone else. Without US economic growth, the world would surely stumble as it had throughout modern history. Apparently, this is [...]
File it under “what were they thinking?” In March 2015, confronted by a severe external monetary squeeze, the PBOC made a truly radical choice. Maybe it was that for a few months anyway things looked a little better. The eurodollar system had practically melted down globally first on October 15, 2014 (collateral) and then in December 2014 and January 2015 [...]
Somehow, the scale of May 29 keeps getting bigger. I should clarify, meaning that the very few data series that can pick up on what happened that day have had trouble picking up on exactly what happened that day. It was, to put it simply, a global collateral call of some undetermined magnitude. We know it was substantial by the [...]
The Asians are selling their Treasuries again, which can only mean one thing. The mainstream media will offer all sorts of explanations as to why that might be and not a single one will be correct. China and Japan are offloading US$ assets primarily federal government debt for vastly different reasons. Their decisions spring from the same source, but Japan’s [...]
The calendar last month hadn’t yet run out on US Industrial Production as it had for US Retail Sales. The hurricane interruption of 2017 for industry unlike consumer spending extended into last September. Therefore, the base comparison for 2018 is against that artificial low. As such, US IP rose by 5.1% year-over-year last month. That’s the largest gain since 2010. [...]
It was for a time a somewhat curious dilemma. When it rains it pours, they always say, and for China toward the end of 2015 it was a real cloudburst. The Chinese economy was slowing, dangerous deflation developing around an economy captured by an unseen anchor intent on causing havoc and destruction. At the same time, consumer prices were jumping [...]
The one thing the globally synchronized growth narrative had going for it was sentiment. It often had that in surplus. But therein lies a major drawback; are people happy because things are getting better, or do they believe things are getting better because “everyone” says so? There’s a difference and it’s a big one. And it may not matter much [...]
Whether or not any central banker chooses to appreciate the fact, money is an important economic tool. Before it ever gets to be a store of value, there has to be some correct supply so as to become a medium of exchange (and almost by virtue a unit of account). The problem throughout history has been to foresee and then [...]
What do consumers know that Economists don’t? It’s a loaded question, of course, particularly in this day and age where Economists spend years perfecting the study of mathematics. In many ways, formal training is an impediment to analysis of the economy. There’s nothing wrong with learning about regressions, but it can and often does appear to take away from intuitive [...]
The clock really was ticking on this so-called economic boom. A product in many economic accounts of Keynesian-type fantasy, the destructive effects of last year’s hurricanes in sharp contrast to this year’s (which haven’t yet registered a direct hit on a major metropolitan area or areas, as was the case with Harvey and Irma) meant both a temporary rebound birthed [...]
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