———WHERE———

AlhambraTube: https://bit.ly/2Xp3roy

Apple: https://apple.co/3czMcWN

iHeart: https://ihr.fm/31jq7cI

Castro: https://bit.ly/30DMYza

TuneIn: http://tun.in/pjT2Z

Google: https://bit.ly/3e2Z48M

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3arP8mY

Castbox: https://bit.ly/3fJR5xQ

Breaker: https://bit.ly/2CpHAFO

Podbean: https://bit.ly/3enSAkr

Stitcher: https://bit.ly/2C1M1GB

Overcast: https://bit.ly/2YyDsLa

PocketCast: https://pca.st/encarkdt

PodcastAddict: https://bit.ly/2V39Xjr

 

———WHO———
 
 
 
 
Jeff Snider, Head of Global Investment Research for Alhambra Investments with Emil Kalinowski, trying to punch out of the box. Artwork by David Parkins, the thinking man’s Auguste Rodin.
 
———HOW———
Central banks have lowered rates!  Economic stimulus!  Cannonball!  No.  The MARKETS lowered rates and central banks followed.  Low rates signal economic disorder, liquidity preference and the very opposite of stimulus.
 
———WHY———

[Emil’s Summary] The final setting of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale occurs well into the future, at a symposium of historians examining the Handmaid era. Your podcaster expects a similar, future gathering of scholars evaluating the Time of CoVid. They’ll likely conclude it was an economic and political bankruptcy; a mathematical and moral fiasco. Still, it wasn’t all bad, and this podcaster imagines that sitting at the back of the room a lowly assistant will indecorously interrupt proceedings with, “At least the Funny Flu allowed a new Cannonball Run that stood for ages!”

Before security could be called to escort this violator of stodgy proceedings out – the iconoclast would blithely explain, that the Cannonball Run is an unofficial, entirely illegal 2,800 mile (4,500 kilometer) car race from New York City’s Red Ball Garage to the Portofino Hotel in Los Angeles. That the pre-‘Rona record was 27 hours, 25 minutes. That with Captain Trips clearing the roads of grandmas, convoys, smokey, panda and the fuzz the new record was set at an eyelid peeling 25 hours, 55 minutes. And that two general documentaries were released on the subject, including the Cannonball Run II – which is in your podcaster’s sincere, very unprofessional opinion the best documentary ensemble cast ever, including stars: Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Shirley MacLaine, Frank Sinatra and Jackie Chan, among others.

And it is the ensemble cast that makes this 22nd episode of Making Sense a special one. We try to answer three questions: which paradigm do central banks inhabit, was Aristotle an idiot, and are low rates stimulative? In trying to answer them we turn to Jeff Snider. But also, Aristotle himself, and Ben Bernanke, Benoit Mandelbrot, the Bride, Christopher Nolan, the Cohen Brothers, Cormac McCarthy, Eugene Fama, Henri Poincaré, Hugh Hendry, Janet Yellen, Jay Powell, Jeb Hensarling, Joe Rogan, the Joker, Keith McCullough, Louis Bachelier, Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, Plato, Robert Brown, Ronald Coase, Socrates, Steve Keen, Thomas S. Kuhn, Two-Face and William F. Buckley Jr.

———WHEN———

00:05 Low rates do not signify the central bank providing accommodation
00:55 What did Ben Bernanke say to Congress in 2012 when asked why the recovery was so poor?
03:30 What do we mean by ‘rates are low’? Short- or long-term? Risk- or risk-free? Bonds? Loans? Monetary equivalent?
05:46 Bloomberg said there is a “credit boom” – but not for everyone. Huh? Liquidity preferences.
08:49 Big corporations in the US are accessing credit but it is for protection, not economic activity.
10:59 If we fire all central bankers who should take their place?  

———WHAT———

Low Rates Aren’t a Central Bank Providing Accommodation: https://bit.ly/3iF0cBs
Alhambra Investments Blog: https://bit.ly/2VIC2wW
RealClear Markets Essays: https://bit.ly/38tL5a7