It hurts, so people want to know what to blame. Who should they punish for inflicting their pain? Enter human bias and the emotional processing of preconceived conclusions, “inflation” is no longer a topic which can be discussed rationally. A statistical weapon instead to be wielded attempting to settle other debates.Joe Biden did it. No, this is a Biden Boom, [...]
The bond market’s verdict has already been rendered. In fact, the judgment was made even before this year’s CPIs surged to the highest they’d been in a long time. The most consistently accurate and only historically validated source for sorting and signaling inflation, low yields aren’t just skeptical in being low they are unequivocal in remaining steadfastly ultra-low.For those who [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
The BLS said today its Consumer Price Index rose by 6.2% in October 2021 when compared to October 2020. This was the largest annual increase since Alan Greenspan was giving up on M2 three decades ago. Perhaps most concerning, after having taken a few months “off” prices re-accelerated last month reigniting fears of a 70s-style monetary runaway.But, as we saw [...]
Supply shock versus inflation. There’s a huge difference, both in terms of what causes each and how they play out. As discussed in great detail here, it is the bond market not central bankers which repeatedly has proved it can sort out this enormously consequential distinction. Bonds know if there is an overflow of money, they need to pay attention [...]
Over the past week and a half, Treasury has rolled out the CMB’s (cash management bills; like Treasury bills, special issues not otherwise part of the regular debt rotation) one after another: $60 billion 40-day on the 19th; $60 billion 27-day on the 20th; and $40 billion 48-day just yesterday. Treasury also snuck $60 billion of 39-day CMB’s into the [...]
OK, so we went through the ways and reasons consumer price increases are not inflation, cannot be inflation, are nowhere near actual inflation, and what all that really means. The rate they’ve gone up hasn’t been due to an overactive Federal Reserve, so it has to be something else. This is why, though the bulge has been painful, it’s already [...]
More inflation numbers around the world, more of the same. Producer prices, this time. Beginning in the US, the annual rates remain high and reached a little higher in September 2021. Commodities have been the highest of all, up 20.47% year-over-year for another greatest increase since the mid-seventies. The PPI for final demand goods was up 11.68%, that the most [...]
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