Unable to tackle effective monetary requirements, bank regulators around the world turned to “macroprudential” approaches in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. It was mostly public relations, a way to assure the public that 2008 would never be repeated. A whole set of new rules was instituted which everyone was told would rein in the worst abuses. Among the [...]
It was supposed to be the Chinese government who was going to rescue the global economy. Once the rationalizations ended and officials around the world realized there was serious economic weakness building at the end of 2018 instead of a globally synchronized inflationary recovery, the green shoots of 2019 were going to be in one big part a fiscal stimulus [...]
This green shoot didn’t wilt so much as it exploded into a fireball. FRBNY’s Empire State Manufacturing Index had captured the landmine in its initial 2019 readings. Starting from 21.4 (this version uses zero rather than 50 as its dividing line) in November 2018, by January the index had dropped 17.5 points in just two months. It then stabilized and [...]
It’s actually one of the few areas that has been studied in mainstream Economics. The links between global financial upset and broader economic consequences are pretty well understood. Trade gets shut down, therefore economies which are highly dependent upon the exchange of goods experience the effects first. When you see these bellwethers under pressure, it’s a bad sign. The mysterious [...]
The way I look at the global economy, there are basically five different zones. The first is the US and the second is Europe. China might be third on this list but often second if not first in terms of what’s driving marginal changes. In behind those is Japan, not what it once was but still often a bellwether for [...]
For the third time in the last five months, inflation expectations have matched record lows. To hear officials and Economists talk, you’d think they were at or nearing record highs. The unemployment rate, after all, is at a 50-year low point which by mainstream reckoning should mean the cusp of an epic wage-driven breakout. According to the University of Michigan’s [...]
With the Democratic Party staging the first of its national debates, The New York Times found time to embed a reporter amongst a group of Trump voters in the swing state of Michigan. Situated to watch the show, and given how the election of 2016 turned out, the Rust Belt is on the minds of both parties. It doesn’t seem, [...]
In 2005, Ben Bernanke kicked up quite a bit of controversy, or what qualifies as drama in the dry space of top-level Economics. It was Alan Greenspan who really started the conversation, practically begging for someone to offer an answer. Long-term interest rates were not behaving the way they were supposed to; the maestro’s true swan song was his “conundrum.” [...]
ACT Research, the leading publisher of commercial vehicle industry data in North America, reported last week that freight rates in for-hire trucking had declined in May. It was the fourth month in row when prices had been pressured. More and more, there is a downturn growing in the transportation sector. Commenting on freight rates, Tim Denoyer, ACT’s VP and Senior [...]
Last week, for the first time since February 2008, the LIBOR curve inverted. The 3-month tenor has been on the move downward for some time. The 1-month rate has been gentler in its slope. Last Thursday, the two finally crossed. As unnatural as inversion in the UST curve or elsewhere, it’s another sign of imminent rate cuts. I am somewhat [...]
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