Copper prices are getting pummeled this morning. Since copper is somewhat unique in its setting between wholesale finance and the real economy, but most especially what might fairly be termed the Asian dollar, it functions not just as a “dollar” proxy but perhaps more focused than that. We can assume by copper’s selloff today (the price for October futures delivery [...]
From the growing inconsistencies even in statements about the short run, economists are going to have to be careful lest they conclude monetarism doesn’t work. That is, of course, where most of the rest of the world is headed (and where the “dollar” already resides) but the strains to credulity lately are nails in the coffin. I described the political [...]
Outwardly, you can appreciate why central banks act as they do under serious and dangerous circumstances. Prices aren’t just what someone will pay but also represent information that is transmitted broadly to all corners. Thus, if something is going wrong there are prices that will show it, potentially diffusing contagion to other places and markets. From a child-like perspective, it [...]
With global economic perceptions finally creeping toward financial perceptions (not stocks) despite the enormous and mostly ongoing “stimulus” almost everywhere, it is useful to review once more the assumed general mechanisms. Step 1 is really the most basic and traditional element of central banking, as liquidity, broadly speaking here, is currency elasticity in its more modern format. Increasing liquidity is [...]
Well, thank goodness that's over. The Fed met last week and decided to maintain the Fed funds rate in the 0 - 0.25% range in which it has been confined since the great financial crisis of 2008. Of course, the fed funds market is essentially kaput having been usurped by the Fed itself during the crisis so the rate charged [...]
While outward asset markets have clearly been upended by the implications (at long last) of the Fed not doing anything, the internals of the money/”dollar” markets are actually worse. I don’t know if it could be classified as another forming “dollar” wave, but it doesn’t look good from this vantage point heading into an uncertain weekend. In many ways, the [...]
When something deviates so far from expectations, the last thing you would do is dismiss it as unimportant. Yet, that is exactly what has happened in 2015 among the cabal of economists that claim to be able to control monetary levers of economic interjection. It’s not just that the FOMC will not act as it was so sure it would, [...]
When the difference between your rhetoric and your actions is wide, inconsistency is pretty much axiomatic. However, Janet Yellen’s press conference was much more than that. I understand it’s a lot to charge blatant dishonesty, but almost everything she said is cow manure. And I make that assertion not on my own reading of the situation, but on hers. The [...]
If we are being honest and using words as they exactly mean, the recovery actually ended in 2012. My sense of dating would mark that as March 2012 since so many various data series held that month for what has been a durable inflection. It was true not just here in the US, but across the globe as 2012 was [...]
On a day when the Fed will likely overshadow everything with unearned attentiveness, the BLS released its annual benchmark for the Establishment Survey. Actually, it was just the preliminary estimate for the coming benchmark revision, which was curiously downward. It bears repeated that the BLS does not estimate the total count of either employed persons or payrolls but rather each [...]
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