On Friday, February, 2, 2001, the BLS reported stellar headline numbers for its Employment Situation release. Preliminary estimates for the Establishment Survey suggested US payrolls had gained +268k in the month of January. To put it in perspective, that would equate to +324k in today’s population, or a bit better than the latest figure. The economic climate of the time [...]
The problem, or one of them anyway, with so many glaring market warnings is that it becomes difficult to keep up with all of them. You tend to focus on those right in front of you, the more immediate and visible. Oil is everything for reflation, and therefore its untimely end, so naturally the WTI curve gets all the unlovable [...]
On August 30, 2006, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported preliminary estimates for US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the second quarter. It was figured back then that domestic output increased 2.9% over the first quarter, seasonally adjusted, somewhat of a decrease from the robust start to 2006. Final estimates for Q1 thought the economy had advanced 5.6% during [...]
In June 2003, while discussing the vote that would take the federal funds rate to its then-lowest point, 1%, Alan Greenspan committed what may have been the greatest monetary sin of modern times. The focus for much of the discussion was Japan, that country’s central bank pioneering at that early date all the things the Fed and other majors would [...]
Why did inflation hysteria die? The answer is surprisingly simple. Proponents way oversold the thing. They kept claiming that the labor market, via a truly booming economy, would force the Fed’s hand. Wage growth was about to explode, therefore monetary policy couldn’t afford to be complacent. Aggressiveness was about to become Jay Powell’s go-to position. This year is now more [...]
Since nobody can seem to agree on what is an asset bubble, it’s that much more difficult to try and estimate its end. A bubble stops being a bubble only when the people participating decide to question the rationalizations they’ve invented to keep them complacently inside of it. It’s most often just that vague sense the world isn’t turning out [...]
This past weekend saw many occasions around the world mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. Rather than lament the rise of one of the most destructive influences of the modern world, most if not all were quite celebratory. The much-loved philosopher, especially in academic circles, has for his followers given them an outlet for revival. It [...]
I am decidedly in favor of going back to the way it was twenty-five years ago. These constant communications from the Federal Reserve, designed to increase transparency, have accomplished the opposite. Alan Greenspan was made famous for first being an accidental genius (no, it wasn’t massive offshore monetary growth that made the Great “Moderation”, it was 25 bps moves one [...]
On May 16, 2000, the FOMC gathered around in Washington to debate taking more extreme measures. For nearly a year, Greenspan’s Federal Reserve had been “raising rates” in the now-familiar pattern. Adjusting their target for interest on federal funds, the Committee had by then increased it at all of the five previous policy meetings, each of them by a further [...]
The parallels between the last few years and those at the end of the 1990’s are striking. There was a few years ago the monetary intrusion of the “rising dollar” which at its worst seriously depressed the global economy. Oil prices crashed, as did several key currencies, and deflationary pressures that often accompany a significant downturn were manifest. Starting in [...]
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