Denmark’s Niels Bohr considered himself more of a philosopher than a physicist, yet he contributed so much to the groundbreaking approach that became the basis for quantum physics. At the same time Germany’s Werner Heisenberg was writing the famous paper on “his” uncertainty principle, Bohr was purportedly on vacation thinking up the deeper consequences and meaning of all its implications.Upon [...]
For Episode 74.0 of Eurodollar University’s Making Sense, Emil and I were incredibly honored and thrilled to have been able to bring on Allison Fedirka from Geopolitical Futures, the outfit of George Friedman fame. Specifically, we were interested in her specialty which is Latin America because after China that’s where you want to go next to understand how developments money [...]
China’s economy is nowhere near recovered from 2020’s steep recession, yet, contrary to textbook demands, the Chinese central bank is winding down its support. This is especially important given that monetary policy last year hadn’t actually been all that supportive to begin with (see below). The two major money outlets, currency and bank reserves, were allowed a noticeable yet only [...]
Awash in “stimulus”, but none able to dent a semiconductor shortage which is purportedly the reason for production woes. In the US and many other places around the world, governments have gone nuclear, with America’s federal authorities dropping checks with abandon. This has created, according to some, everyone in the media, a red hot economy right on the verge of [...]
Deconstructing long-term interests may seem like a purely academic exercise. This is certainly how Economists treat it, coming at them using their statistical models. The goal is always to properly interpret these most basic of economic, financial, and monetary fundamentals so as to understand where everything that matters stands. Getting this wrong is the difference between night and day; between [...]
The standard explanation for low bond yields has been driven by – who else? – Ben Bernanke summing up the view from econometrics. Term premiums, he says, these made-up decomposition components which only allow for QE to save a tiny bit of its face. In other words, QE obviously didn’t lead to recovery, it sure didn’t create modest let alone [...]
If there is one thing Economists understand very well, it’s mathematics. This is practically all they do, and all that means much to their discipline. If there’s one thing Economists don’t seem either competent with or interested in, it’s the economy. The math is supposed to match the other’s reality, yet rarely does.There are times, however, when simple calculation is [...]
Twenty-fifteen was an important yet completely misunderstood year. The Fed was going to have to become hawkish, according to its models, yet oil prices crashed and the dollar continued to rise. Both of those things were described as “transitory” by Janet Yellen, and that they were helpful or positive (rising dollar means cleanest dirty shirt!), but domestically American policymakers’ clear [...]
The sound of economic sizzle finally within earshot, though perhaps nearly a year too late. PMI’s for the month of March 2021 were of the sort which should have come about in May and June 2020. The “V”-shaped recovery was much talked about at that earlier time, though in PMI terms (as well as regular “hard” data) the numbers fell [...]
My entire premise was to make this mockingly simple. Econometrics demands mathematical precision yet always comes up empty because its calculations, no matter how elegantly complex, proceed from the falsest of subjective assumptions. It won’t matter how awesome the computing power if the thing you’re trying to compute doesn’t work or act the way you believe (because everyone says so [...]
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