The easy answer for “muted” inflation is consumers. Forget the unemployment rate debate. Let’s assume that labor markets are tight. Workers are scarce and companies have to compete, and pay up, to secure labor. Input costs are rising. That doesn’t necessarily guarantee an accelerating CPI or PCE Deflator. There is a final step in the Fed’s recovery process. Those labor-driven [...]
The administration continues to plead for rate cuts. I think they understand the gravity of the situation, if not quite the situation itself. The President’s chief economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, was back at his old TV home on CNBC today. In the wake of more “muted” inflation figures one quarter of the way through 2019, Kudlow said: The inflation rate [...]
To most people, this inflation business seems pretty silly. There are those who argue that any inflation index whether the CPI, PCE Deflator or some other approach yet to be devised can accurately capture the concept. And they are absolutely right to question the enterprise. Most people feel inflation in the things they do most; food, health insurance, the cost [...]
Japan is the very model of fiscal irresponsibility. If ever there was a bond vigilante, surely they would have a Japanese address. At the end of what was the Bank of Japan’s 133rd fiscal year, on March 31, 2018, Japan’s central bank reported total assets of ¥528,285,679,854,140. Of which, ¥448,326,107,324,120 was Japanese government bonds (JGB). Officials became increasingly confident these [...]
The economic data reported over the last month managed to confirm both that the economy is slowing and that there seems little reason to fear recession at this point. The slowdown is mostly a manufacturing affair - and some of that is actually a fracking slowdown - but consumption has also slowed. On a more positive note, housing seems to [...]
At the end of last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported data on US Personal Income and Spending that hit every sour note. There was the lowest inflation rate, the deflator to those spending figures, in years as well as the clear need to officially anoint a successor to the Verizon madness. The release also featured residual seasonality, and, [...]
Don't waste your time worrying about things that are well worried. Well worried. One of the best turns of phrase I've ever heard in this business that has more than its fair share of adages and idioms. It is also one of the first - and best - lessons I learned from my original mentor in this business. The things [...]
As an alternate member of the FOMC, Lorretta Mester has been sounding off on inflation. When the payroll report for the month of August 2018 was released early in September, Mester as President of the Cleveland Fed was widely quoted for her “hawkish” stance. Referencing the highest wage growth in a decade, speaking in Boston she said, “Today’s [jobs] report [...]
Last August, the Senate confirmed Richard Clarida for both a position on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors as well as to be installed as its Vice Chairman. Clarida had been chairman of the Economics department at Columbia as well as working for PIMCO where he had served the investment company as its Global Strategic Advisor since 2006. You can [...]
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: [...]
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