Category Archives: Economic fundamentals

Wolf Richter: “Smart Money” Prepares to Profit from Bond Market Rout

“If I had an easy way and a non-risk way of shorting a whole lot of 20- or 30-year bonds, I’d do it,” said our favorite uncle Warren Buffett on CNBC. These kinds of bonds have been on a terrific bull run ever since Paul Volker, as Chairman of the Fed, cracked down on inflation. But now, even the avuncular face of capitalism would bet against them.

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The Persecution and Assassination of the People of Greece as Performed by the Inmates of the Troika, Under the Direction of the Eurogroup

A new paper shreds the myths that justified the misguided application of austerity and wage-rate reduction policies in Greece and the Eurozone.

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Satyajit Das: Two Views of Japan’s Setting Sun

Das discusses two recent books on Japan, and both provide windows on how Japan is coping with its now lost two decades. One of them is by Tag Murphy, who I met in my days in Japan and has long been a very insightful commentator. As I said at the Atlantic Economy conference, rather than trying to “jump start the economy,” which would take more radical restructuring than they are willing to engage in, the top wealthy might be better served to worry about managing low growth better. And for its many flaws, egalitarian Japan has muddled through a far more severe bubble and bust with more grace than we have.

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Eurogroup Demands Varoufakis’ Ouster; Trajectory Toward Default Continues

In case you had any doubts that Greece is supposed to act like a good debt vassal, the Eurogroup’s hissy fit over Yanis Varoufakis at last Friday’s meeting, which stoked a raft of unflattering articles, has now led it to demand to that Greek government remove him.

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Pettifor Warns of GFC 2.0 Approach

Yves here. This is a short but important debate over how much to worry about the upcoming train wreck in emerging markets when the Fed finally gets around to tightening. Pettifor sees it as a potential global crisis event; Macrobusiness sees it as a typical emerging markets bust. The Pettifor viewpoint seems more on target. First, […]

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