The important point about doctrinaire ideology is its utmost rigidity. For the longest time that was relevant to the operations of central banks, as they practiced what might have been the most modern version of a new religion. From the end of the gold standard in the 1960’s (1971 was simply the last step in the process) until only recently [...]
There would be a lot more use for the Treasury Dept’s TIC flows and holdings data if it was released closer to real time, but even with that evident staleness about it I think there is a lot of use in how it frames what we see in the dollar and currencies (thus spilling over into “markets” everywhere). The dominant [...]
Last week was pretty much a disaster, not just economically speaking, for a wide swath of the globe – from Japan’s ongoing "unexpected" collapse to Europe’s "unexpected" third go at contraction (without recovery) to a very dim and "unexpected" view of credit markets pretty much everywhere including the US. This week started out with more grimness, in places like China [...]
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