If there is one small silver lining from 2018’s economic performance, it is that Milton Friedman’s interest rate fallacy is being robustly proven yet again. Many Economists will have you believe that low interest rates, short or long, are stimulus. This is a huge mistake. Here’s what Friedman said in December 1997: As the economy revives, however, interest rates would [...]
Imagine yourself as a rural Chinese farmer. Even the term “farmer” makes it sound better than it really is. This is a life out of the 19th century, subsistence at best the daily struggle just to survive. Flourishing is a dream. Only, you can see just on the other side of the hill the bright reflective lights of one of [...]
The English language headline for China’s National Bureau of Statistics’ press release on November 2018’s Big 3 was, National Economy Maintained Stable and Sound Momentum of Development in November. For those who, as noted yesterday, are wishing China’s economy bad news so as to lead to the supposed good news of a coordinated “stimulus” response this was itself a bad [...]
How quickly hope can sour. That is, if it is based on suspect assumptions and a misreading of the general situation. It would then be more like irrational pleading than derived from solid analysis. One year ago, thereabouts, President Trump delivered upon one campaign pledge. He pushed a tax reform bill through Congress aiming to offer benefits to both the [...]
The first central banker to blink wasn’t Jay Powell it was Stephen Poloz. The Bank of Canada has been steadily raising its policy rate like the Fed, or had been. It was widely expected that Canada’s central bank would skip this last meeting but there was no doubt about another 25 bps increase next month. Instead, things are a little [...]
There was nothing really shocking about China’s monthly economic statistics for October 2018. The Big 3, Industrial Production, Retail Sales, and Fixed Asset Investment, all continue along in the same way. The Chinese economy is not crashing, it may be slowing, but most of all there isn’t any more upside. It’s the last one that is important. As such, Communist [...]
It’s one thing if China registers a low ceiling or Brazil. That wasn’t going to be possible this time in the developed world. Europe and the US were finally going to lead. That’s what they said last year, anyway. Markets are freaking out about the growing evidence for so many growth ceilings. The other term for it is an “L” [...]
The Bank of Canada held its benchmark overnight rate steady at its last meeting in early September. Like the Federal Reserve, Canada’s central bank has been “tightening.” The policy lever had been lifted four times starting in July 2017. It is expected that when monetary officials meet in Ottawa tomorrow they will vote for a fifth. In recent weeks, though, [...]
China’s economy is not crashing. Hyperbole works both ways. Last year and this, the smallest increment above a prior number was broadcast out as the greatest thing ever (US wage growth in particular), irrefutable proof of globally synchronized growth. Now that that’s over with, largely, there will be a tendency toward the other extreme. The latest Chinese economic statistics are [...]
The clock really was ticking on this so-called economic boom. A product in many economic accounts of Keynesian-type fantasy, the destructive effects of last year’s hurricanes in sharp contrast to this year’s (which haven’t yet registered a direct hit on a major metropolitan area or areas, as was the case with Harvey and Irma) meant both a temporary rebound birthed [...]
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