Going back to the yearlong period (more like fourteen months) where inflation breakevens fell into the apparent nothingness of being almost wholly range-bound, I surmised that the artificial placidity had to do with the inability of market participants to let go of their normally all-consuming faith in Fed optimism. On the one side, economists, particularly the central bankers all over [...]
The reason I spend so much time on Japan is that it is the purest “laboratory” conditions available in which to determine, hopefully for all time, the (un)viability of monetarism. The orthodox monetary practitioners that unleashed the yen torrent were not last year equivocating in their predictions and forecasts. Abenomics and QQE would work without fail, they said; the only [...]
Continuing on with the theme of orthodox interpretation vs. context, in order to determine not just the relative position of the economy but how that relates to “markets” vis-à-vis bubbles, the current estimates of personal income and spending fit well within those rough confines as I have described them. The orthodox interpretation sees the changing growth rates in 2014 as [...]
There was a bit of a stir caused by Dutch logistics firm, TNT Express. The company has been expressing caution, if not downright pessimism about its prospects due to economic considerations. Today, it lowered its targets for growth, with the stock taking a beating in so doing. However, it is the manner of that downgrade that should be seriously considered, [...]
There is an interesting dichotomy taking shape in credit markets, including those around the globe (that will be a separate post). Some of this, I think, relates to what FOMC member Richard Fisher related today about concerns over asset bubbles. I think the Economic Times of India summed him up the best: Already there are signs of financial excess in [...]
Another month, another instance where supposed “tight” supply and high home prices fail to register any significant change in home construction. Construction figures for August bear little resemblance to the idea that anything other than monetary interference is responsible for the mini-bubble in activity. Further, August represents another month’s worth of confirmation, despite any and all volatility in the data [...]
With Brazil in recession and much of the “resource” part of the supply chain nearing that or worrying about it, you can surely bet that there are “unexpected” problems in the Chinese economy. As much as the word “decoupling” is being used once again (though in 2008 it was reversed, with the world supposedly able to decouple from US weakness) [...]
Part of the tale being spun perpetually about the economy, any economy in this day and age, relies on nothing more than circularism. Because monetary policy is so captured by managing expectations, meaning that economists and policymakers will never be anything but positive about anything ever again, you end up with nonsense as a foundation for prediction. That might pass [...]
The retail sales release for August was actually quite alarming. The track of sales pretty much confirms the end of the spring “bounce” that showed up in Gallup’s figures, but the real concern is that the “bounce” itself was never more than a minor adjustment; an absence of further erosion as it were. That is nothing like what is being [...]
With credit markets in Europe and the US taking a bit of a pause for profit-taking or reassessment, it is notable that currencies have not. The euro finally broke free of what looked like a steady range, though unfortunately to the downside. While that may be celebrated by orthodox economists in Brussels and elsewhere, it should not as such devaluation [...]
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