Ask Bob – Social Security Spousal Benefits & Marital Separation
Alhambra's Bob Williams answers the question, "Can you receive a Social Security Spousal benefit if you are separated but not divorced?".
Chinese Ice Cream
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 [...]
Is M2 The Money Behind Inflation? If Not, What Is (Or Isn’t)?
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 [...]
Weekly Market Pulse (VIDEO)
Alhambra CEO Joseph Y. Calhoun discusses the Katona effect in light of last week's 10-year low consumer sentiment number and the 30-year high inflation number.
Weekly Market Pulse: Paging George Katona
Consumer sentiment hit a decade low last month, falling 6 points from an already low level. The culprit? Inflation, which we learned last week hit a 3 decade high in October. And if the founder of the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey is right, the next thing we'll see is an economic slowdown. George Katona was a psychologist who [...]
Always The Next Landmine
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 [...]
Eurodollar University’s Making Sense; Episode 150, Part 3: China’s Central Bank Balance Sheet’s Dollar Flash
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 [...]
Inflation Just Doesn’t Pass Math
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 [...]
The Wage/Economy Illusion
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. [...]
Eurodollar University’s Making Sense; Episode 150, Part 2: Are All CPI’s The Same Thing? No and the Bond Market Tells You
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 [...]
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