How much Mao is too much? If you’re like me, the answer is anything above zero. Introducing Maoism is quite like the adage of ice cream mixing dog poo; the former cannot improve the latter even a tiny drop. On the contrary, the smallest helping of feces leaves the whole thing smelling like it, rendered completely inedible no matter how [...]
Milton Friedman was touring India, and while there he shocked his audience by stating, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” This was 1963, and the audacity of that statement is today understated. Back then, Keynes didn’t just rule there was hardly any opposition to such accepted orthodox dogma.Arguing from firmly empirical rather than theoretical grounds, Friedman’s effort was [...]
Picking up where we left off from our review of the first series of landmines, including the big one at the end of 2008, the world has been rocked by these things in almost continuous succession. Every couple of years, “everyone” says the world is recovering from the previous “unexpected” shock only to find instead how the global system ends [...]
150.3 Warning Indicator Blinks Red on PBOC Balance Sheet ———Ep 150.3 Summary———What kind of foreign assets do you own PBOC? Well, we are adding a lot of "other" right now. "Other"? Yes, "other". What is that? Don't worry about it. What do you mean, 'Don't worry about it.'? Just know that we're adding it, whatever it is - it's good. ———Sponsor———Macropiece [...]
For the first time since last December, the level of Job Openings (JO) pictured by the BLS’s JOLTS survey declined. End of the line for the economy?I am intentionally overselling this monthly minus. While the latest figure for September 2021 was indeed less than the one for August, if only because August’s estimate was raised by several hundred thousand. Going [...]
Irving Fisher was a prolific economic writer and thinker. In addition to decomposing bond yields into growth and inflation expectations, he also came up with something called the money illusion. He ever went so far as to write a book on the idea, published in 1928, for all his imagination called simply The Money Illusion.At issue is, essentially, human nature. [...]
150.2 History Lesson: Inflation vs. Bond Yields vs. CPI———Ep 150.1 Summary———We review the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 2000s and 2010s to study how bond yields reacted to persistent and pervasive monetary expansion, stagnation and contraction as well as how bond markets handled transitory consumer price shocks due to supply/demand imbalances. ———Sponsor———Macropiece Theater with Alistair Cooke (i.e. Emil Kalinowski) reading the latest [...]
150.1 Huge 1950s CPI-Surge was Transitory, Not Inflation ———Ep 150.1 Summary———An early-1950s US consumer buying-binge sent the Consumer Price Index soaring. Inflation!? No. It was a transitory supply/demand imbalance brought on by (geo)political factors. The bond market knew it and didn't overreact. And what about the Federal Reserve? They overreacted. ———Sponsor———Macropiece Theater with Alistair Cooke (i.e. Emil Kalinowski) reading the latest [...]
We already covered the yield curve’s reaction given today’s whopping consumer price levels. How about strictly inflation expectations in the market? TIPS, breakevens and such.Unsurprisingly, shorter-term breakevens (5s) jumped 12 bps to a new high of 308 bps (boosted considerably following the auction on October 21st). Pulling up the rest of the inflation “curve”, the 10-year breakeven added a “mere” [...]
The BLS said today its Consumer Price Index rose by 6.2% in October 2021 when compared to October 2020. This was the largest annual increase since Alan Greenspan was giving up on M2 three decades ago. Perhaps most concerning, after having taken a few months “off” prices re-accelerated last month reigniting fears of a 70s-style monetary runaway.But, as we saw [...]
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