Capital ratios are meant to help define a “good bank” for the public. The thought being a bank widely recognized and accepted as a good one will be far less susceptible to a run. But it’s the run regardless of capital ratios that destroys good banks as well as bad. The issue is, by and large, liquidity. Officials have erred [...]
The 21st century central banker is a unicorn chaser. This has happened by default, a product of too little success despite ever-increasing interventions. In fact, the bigger these policy intrusions become the more likely it is the central bankers will attempt to turn something small into something big. It doesn’t matter that economies are noisy by nature. The best example [...]
As usual, Paul Krugman starts out with a serious attempt at answers before detouring into his current profession. Dr. Krugman used to be an Economist, and a pretty good one too (for whatever that’s worth). Nowadays, he employs his New York Times column as a mouthpiece for really blatant politicking. It isn’t even so much an arm of the Democratic [...]
Since December 2015, China’s powerful politburo has met nine times to discuss the economy. The Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee is a group of 25 top officials who control pretty much everything. The politburo’s smaller Standing Committee is the very top echelon of the Communist Party. Members of the politburo are given top jobs in the [...]
If you think President Trump is upset with Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, you should see what’s going on in India. Central bankers had been every government’s close friend for years; a decade even. The relationships were beyond chummy, particularly as many governments celebrated their central bank heroes for heroically heroic actions saving the world from something like a repeat [...]
US imports rose sharply (seasonally-adjusted) in September 2018 over August. Both with and without petroleum, the year-over-year gains (unadjusted) were about 9%. September, however, will be the last month of favorable comparisons. Over the next few months last year’s artificial hurricane related surge will move into the base for comparisons. Exports were up far more modestly, still down from the [...]
On December 5, 2014, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that in the month of November 2014 nonfarm private payrolls had surged by +321k. Typically bureaucratic, the introduction to the report was unusually blunt. “Job gains were widespread.” The text didn’t come right out and say it so the media did it all for them. TD Ameritrade’s Chief Strategist [...]
Language is often said to be a living thing. Common everyday usage can and does introduce new words and changes the meaning of existing ones. But this is a gradual evolution, and rarely does the process leap ahead into more drastic alterations. Central bankers, however, are challenging such preconceptions. They write words that often have specific meanings in everyday custom [...]
Why aren’t more people talking about this? It’s a huge development and nary a peep anywhere. The mainstream media is filled with baited expectations for 3% wage growth on Payroll Friday. All eyes are on the labor market, which is a lagging indication, instead of on the oil market, which is forward looking. As of this writing, the futures curve [...]
Upon the precipice of the Great “Recession”, US workers were cushioned to some extent by what economists call sticky wages. Before the Great Depression, as well as during it, companies would attempt to deal with looming economic contraction by cutting pay rates before workers. Nowadays, the intent is reversed; businesses will try to keep core workers by keeping pay rates [...]
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