When central bankers use the word “financial” in an economic context, they mean exclusively stocks. Maybe that’s somewhat appropriate given how bonds are so often treated as monetary equivalents. Then again, if that is the case in the official view, how does anyone reconcile bonds with anything? Economy or money? The hard answer is that officials don’t really care about [...]
In late March, as global pessimism was renewed in the world’s bond markets, ECB President Mario Draghi appeared as he always does to urge optimism. Yes, Europe’s economy in particular didn’t finish 2018 as he had been expecting. But a soft patch, Draghi said, wouldn’t necessarily “foreshadow [a] serious slump.” The question on the minds of bond investors is, how [...]
Europe is a total mess, no one can (honestly) argue otherwise. But that’s just Germany and France, right? PMI’s in those countries were a disaster. Those reported for the US weren’t really all that bad. Weaker, sure, hardly the obvious sinking especially when compared to German manufacturers. IHS Markit’s flash US Manufacturing Index for March 2019 was 52.5. This was [...]
What most Economists “learned” from the Great Inflation was how important psychological factors had become. You would think that such a huge monetary disconnect would teach especially monetary officials the importance of monetary competence. However, as Upton Sinclair once wrote, paraphrasing, it’s difficult to get a central banker to understand money when his paycheck can be saved by blaming you [...]
What just happened in Europe? The short answer is T-LTRO. The ECB is getting back to being “accommodative” again. This isn’t what was supposed to be happening at this point in time. Quite the contrary, Europe’s central bank had been expecting to end all its programs and begin normalizing interest rates. The reaction to this new round was immediately negative: [...]
It was the most common catchphrase of 2017, interest rates have nowhere to go but up. Maybe it was doomed from the start given that Alan Greenspan was among the more prominent commentators expressing this view. In his mind, the bond market was in a bubble and the party was already over. His successors at the Fed, following in his [...]
For the magic trick to work, it has to be credible. The audience has to be given something concrete upon which they will suspend their disbelief. Quantitative Easing was just such a trick, though only the public held onto any basis for success. You still hear it all the time, how QE was “money printing.” That was the trick. It [...]
If there is one small silver lining from 2018’s economic performance, it is that Milton Friedman’s interest rate fallacy is being robustly proven yet again. Many Economists will have you believe that low interest rates, short or long, are stimulus. This is a huge mistake. Here’s what Friedman said in December 1997: As the economy revives, however, interest rates would [...]
That was a circus. These things are typically ungraceful to begin with, but this one was in a class by itself. Mario Draghi, the leader of the rudderless ECB, was in top form today. For pure entertainment value, he couldn’t have done better. People think that’s not the job of a top central banker but it is! Monetary policy long [...]
As we watch Jay Powell’s case dissipate on NYMEX WTI right before our very eyes, we can count on his ideology to try to make it for him in the absence of actual data. Economists will not budge no matter how much stacks against them; nor how many times we have to repeat this very exercise. This will be the [...]
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