Part 1 is here, the history of defining systemic operation since 1907. The quest over equality or the “right” to impose optimal outcomes is one that cannot go backward. The inevitable failures lead no duty to re-assess overall, but only the means by which the results are to be commanded. That was the essence of Triffin’s Paradox, which was only [...]
Value as a foundation seems almost too literal to be an economic or financial concept, but it is perhaps the bedrock association that makes the economic system. We are used to aspects like profits and money, even inflation, but those are all symptoms of the ever-changing world surrounding value. Karl Marx understood very well how deeply embedded value was even [...]
At some point in the middle of the last century, economics of money shifted to economics of psychology. When Milton Friedman wrote his 1963 book, A Monetary History, it was an effort that uncovered the role of money in the collapse of the Great Depression as he and his co-author, Anna Schwartz, saw it. Whether or not it was a [...]
In its 84th Annual Report released last June, the Bank for International Settlements departed from usual central bankish conventions and decried the growing departure from market discipline and even reality. The BIS even used the loaded term “euphoric” to describe what it saw as risk market prices no longer affected by fundamental economic conditions. As the Financial Times noted then, [...]
The theme this week has been one of killing currencies, or monetary genocide, as that seems to be reaching once-believed improbable levels of descent. While not specifically a self-contained series, the prior pieces, which are relevant to this discussion, are here, here and here. My intent so far as this angle is far more speculative, looking ahead at projecting a [...]
The frightening possibility that the US economy, and the world with it, remains still bound by a single “cycle” dating back to at least 2007 (and you could even argue 2000 or 1995) brings with it nothing good about future prospects. If 2009 wasn’t really the ultimate end then that would mean the true trough is still to be found. [...]
In March 2009, only two days after the exact bottom in US stocks, Alan Greenspan took the pages of the Wall Street Journal to declare, declaratively, that the Fed was not to blame for the catastrophe. His “evidence” was based on this single supposition: The second, and far more credible, explanation [for the housing bubble] agrees that it was indeed [...]
With both the final revision (for now, benchmarks still to be re-estimated numerous times) for last quarter’s GDP estimate and the news that jobless claims “unexpectedly” fell, the idea of recovery is making rounds again particularly in the context of spring (the season). BusinessWeek sums it up best: Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly declined last week to an almost [...]
Given the relatively light holiday week, I thought it somewhat appropriate to finish the very heavy and systemic examination of the series on eurodollar markets (Part 1 here; Part 2 here). The preceding episodes were dedicated to the eurodollar system as it built up toward the 2007 reckoning. What started out as an alternative to the gold standard quickly morphed, [...]
The rapid growth of the eurodollar market made closing the gold window viable. Without an international mechanism to settle trade imbalances, there was no way to keep the dollar as a reserve currency. That is why SDR’s were first conceived, and funded, in the 1960’s. There was every intention to ditch the dollar and move to a single, global currency [...]
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