Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is nothing if not decisive in his views, and has a undisguised fondness for the bearish perspective. But he was correct on the 2008 inflation/commodities headfake, saying repeatedly that deflationary forces would prevail when that was decidedly a minority view. He is also a Euro-skeptic, and I’m less comfortable with that position. The […]
Read more...By Robert Johnson, former chief economist of the Senate Banking Committee and Senior Economist of the Senate Budget Committee who writes at New Deal 2.0. Since the early 1980s, rises in the living standard of middle class United States citizens have not kept up with the gains in labor productivity. Wages in the middle class […]
Read more...By Bruce Krasting, a former foreign exchange and derivatives trader and hedge fund manager. Mohammad said, “One cannot foretell the future”. I think he was on to something. What looks predictable rarely happens. There are always surprises. I have been tripped up so many times. The following are not predictions of things that will happen. […]
Read more...By Bruce Krasting, a former foreign exchange and derivatives trader and hedge fund manager. On December 10th I raised the possibility of Greece breaking the connection with the Euro. On the likelihood of this black swan type of event happening I said, “This is not a high probability outcome.” A week later the possibility of […]
Read more...What is truly remarkable about two comments in the last two days in the august Financial Times, is that they both say protectionism against China is likely. One actually urges it, the other pretty much says it’s a-comin’ unless China mends its ways. And both pieces were written by reputable economists, the last people you’d […]
Read more...By Richard Alford, a former economist at the New York Fed. Since then, he has worked in the financial industry as a trading floor economist and strategist on both the sell side and the buy side. It has been almost a week since the Bernanke testimony and since the dust has settled, two exchanges stand […]
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist who writes for New Deal 2.0. Another Presidential junket to Asia and another one of the usual lectures from China, decrying our “profligate ways”. Today’s Wall Street Journal reports:, “China’s top banking regulator issued a sharp critique of U.S. financial management only hours before President Barack […]
Read more...What a difference seven years makes. No one had a problem with Japan having super low interest rates and stoking a global carry trade, nor with the US running overly loose monetary policy that led to a real estate bubble that spread its impact beyond our borders via the creation of toxic mortgage product sold […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns Is it just me or did Secretary Geithner just talk out of other side of his mouth? Today he wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal with two Asian leaders to mark a big meeting of APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation) in Singapore. The WSJ article started out […]
Read more...By Richard Alford, a former economist at the New York Fed. Since then, he has worked in the financial industry as a trading floor economist and strategist on both the sell side and the buy side. The G-20 statement contained seven principles to guide policy during the balance of the crisis period. However, the agreed […]
Read more...Nouriel Roubini has officially left the “hedging your bets on the economy” camp. He has declared the markets to be frothy because super low dollar borrowing rates have turned the greenback into the funding currency for the carry trade. Far more important than the peppy rally in the stock market is the resumption of early […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. Earlier today I wrote a post featuring comments by Marc Faber as I like to do from time to time. In this particular case Dr. Faber was waxing prosaically about an eventual bankruptcy of the U.S. government. His money quote was: “Next station is when the U.S. government […]
Read more...Wolfgang Munchau, in today’s Financial Times, makes the case that a certain amount of dollar weakness is a good thing and consistent with global rebalancing. On one level, this is a sensible and defensible view. But this view is implicitly based on the idea that the dollar will somehow find its “correct” level, more or […]
Read more...A Bloomberg headline tonight is uncharacteristically alarmist: “Dollar Reaches Breaking Point as Banks Shift Reserves.” However, while the article is correct to point to lack of enthusiasm for the dollar, it presents, but then fails to integrate, a key point: foreign central banks are not cutting dollar holdings. In fact, they are still increasing buying […]
Read more...Whoops, that was the old brand, and it was to be led by Japan. The results were less than happy since Japan was not prepared to take “no” for an answer. But this time around, necessity as well as opportunity are leading China, Japan, and Korea to discuss moving forward on closer economic ties. In […]
Read more...