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. In reaction to the OPEC-engineered oil price spikes of the 1970s, which economists would depict as external negative supply […]
Read more...I was tight on time for this interview, and as a result I spoke at an even more rapid clip than usual. Hope you enjoy it nevertheless! More at The Real News
Read more...John Hussman is always worth reading, and his current missive is a hum-dinger. I’m extracting some key bits below, and urge you to read it in full. Note that Hussman is far from alone in chiding the Fed for encroaching on Constitutionally-mandated budget processes, including former central bankers. From Willem Buiter: As regards democratic accountability […]
Read more...The Fed’s announcement of $600 billion of intermediate and long Treasury purchase, informally dubbed QE2, teed off a peppy rally in stocks, and led to further weakening of the dollar. These trends were already well in motion thanks to the central bank’s winks and nods that it was going to embark on another round of […]
Read more...By Nauro F. Campos, Saul Estrin, and Eugenio Proto, first posted at VoxEU Conventional wisdom says that corruption hurts the economy because it taxes investment and weakens public services. This column presents evidence from interviews with CEOs in Brazil. It argues that corruption acts as a barrier to entry, with potential entrants put off by […]
Read more...The Fed seems to have decided to split a loaf on the conservative side, coming in with less QE than the market’s hopes, at $600 billion, but one might cynically surmise above the low end expectation of $500 billion. Side by side comparison of this FOMC statement with the next most recent courtesy Andrew Horowitz […]
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and Roosevelt Institute fellow There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize Barack Obama’s dismal stewardship of the US economy, and God knows I’ve voiced quite a few of them, but it does not follow that every criticism made of his economic policies is therefore legitimate. There is quite […]
Read more...The contradictions of the Eurobailout mechanism were bound to be resolved at some point, smoke and mirror and insufficient firepower relative to the magnitude of the problem will only take you so far. The eurozone rescue operation, although it looked like it was aimed at so called Club Med, aka PIGS sovereigns (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, […]
Read more...Tom Ferguson, who is refreshingly blunt, gives his dim view of the Obama Administration economic policies. But be warned, he doesn’t like the Republican proposals either. From the Real News Network: More at The Real News
Read more...Here’s the update, per the New York Times: The Chinese government on Thursday abruptly ended its unannounced export embargo on crucial rare earth minerals to the United States, Europe and Japan, four industry officials said. The embargo, which has raised trade tensions, ended as it had begun — with no official acknowledgment from Beijing, or […]
Read more...There are more news sightings that point to heightened worry about Eurozone sovereign debt/bank woes. A spate from Bloomberg this AM. Normally, when I can come close to doing one-stop shopping on relevant topics on Bloomberg, it’s a sign of anxiety. The first is “EU Bows to German Call for Permanent Debt Mechanism.” This piece […]
Read more...By Joe Costello, communications director for Jerry Brown’s 1992 presidential campaign and was a senior adviser for Howard Dean’s effort in 2004 who writes at Archein and New Deal 2.0 Without meaningful reforms, our economy — and our politics — will continue to suffer. New York, New York big city of dreams And everything in […]
Read more...I’m so offended by the latest Obama canard, that the financial crisis of 2007-2008 cost less than 1% of GDP, that I barely know where to begin. Not only does this Administration lie on a routine basis, it doesn’t even bother to tell credible lies. .And this one came directly from the top, not via […]
Read more...The recent jousting between the US and China had the look of a full on row. And the spectacle at last weekend’s G20 seemed to offer further confirmation, with Geithner proposing a cap on current account surpluses that was aimed at China above all. But now the Financial Times tells us that relations are already […]
Read more...Yves here. One thing I have noticed on posts that discuss the US labor market and trade is reflexive and frankly somewhat dogmatic defeatism. The position seems to be “China and Bangladesh have such cheap labor, there is no way we can compete.” This view is simplistic. First, in capital intensive industries, direct labor is […]
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