I don’t think Milton Friedman would have made much of chess player. For all I know he might have been a grand master or something close to that rank, but as much as his work is admirable it invites too the whole range of opposite emotion. He was the champion libertarian of the free market who rescued economics from the [...]
Back in March 2015, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policymaking body of the Federal Reserve, had a problem. In reality at that particular time they had a whole range of problems, but one in particular would set them on their current course. Their overarching task as they define it is to create or foster the best set of [...]
As much as even the major labor market statistics have picked up on slowing, they wouldn’t have in the first quarter of this year presented enough of it to keep productivity positive. With a very low level of output, once again, calculated labor productivity was for the fourth time over the last six quarters negative. According to the BEA, total [...]
Back when the WTI curve was at its steepest contango, who was it that was buying up all that oil? A sheer vertical curve is an invitation to almost free money, very much like other curves everywhere else during the “rising dollar.” You could simultaneously buy crude at spot and sell it for delivery years ahead using a futures contract, [...]
Closing the book on Q4 2016 balance sheet capacity is to review essentially forex volumes. The eurodollar system over the last ten years has turned far more in this direction in addition to it becoming more Asian/Japanese. In fact, the two really go hand in hand given the native situation of Japanese banks. As expected, data compiled by the Office [...]
In a world where everything is transitory, nothing is. The FOMC in its latest statement referred to that word yet again. As always, the context is weakness. But if such is always unexpected yet occurring, even if temporary, “transitory” doesn’t apply. Yet we go through the ritual each time anyway. The last (March) statement read: The Committee expects that with [...]
The Los Angeles Times today asked the question only the mainstream would ask. “Wages are growing and surveys show consumer confidence is high. So why are motor vehicle sales taking a hit?” Indeed, the results reported earlier by the auto sector were the kind of sobering figures that might make any optimist wonder. Across the board, and for the fourth [...]
Part 1 is here. The story of the asset bubbles is one of eurodollars alone. We can tell so much of the history of the past few decades by examining its pieces. The primary component has been derivatives, these financial instruments that are largely misunderstood shrouded often by what can appear to be incomprehensible complexity. That their own purveyors more [...]
You could say that SunTrust dodged a bullet. The Georgia bank was itself an amalgam of smaller banks cobbled together during the deregulation of the 1980’s. On the one side were the Florida subsidiaries based in Orlando, what came to be known as the Sun Bank. On the other was the Trust Company of Georgia, both coming together in 1985 [...]
Declines in several of the world’s PMI’s in April have furthered doubts about the global “reflation.” But while many disappointed, some sharply, it isn’t just this one month that has sown them. In China, for example, both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing sentiment indices declined to 6-month lows. While that might be erased next month as normal short run volatility, the [...]
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