Category Archives: Economic fundamentals

Econoparody: The Dollar and Its Diving

From the folks at Versus. Enjoy!

Guest Post: A recession to remember – Lessons from the US, 1937–1938

Yves here. Normally I put up cross posts without additional commentary, but I wanted to offer a couple of observations about this post. While this piece is admittedly a bit heavy on economist-speak, and readers may differ with the policy recommendations, = it gives an even-handed account of the early rebound during the Great Depression […]

…or maybe the ECB isn’t the point at all

Following up on my last, John Dizard takes a different line from Ambrose. What Dizard wants is a sovereign default system, and he wants it now, not in 2013. The starting point is last week’s Eurobungle: Last week’s crisis in “peripheral” euro area bond markets was the consequence of a series of own goals by […]

ECB into the breach?

Various Eurosceptics are piping up this morning, and no wonder. Unfortunately some of the interesting stuff is behind the FT’s magnificently unstable subscription firewall, which, in an attack of paranoia, or megalomania, has decided today, as it occasionally does, to deny access to everything, even the free bits, subscriber or not. It is like something […]

The Irish mess (VII), and a spot of Portugal

As far too diffidently implied in this post on Friday, looking out for an Irish bailout over the weekend turned out to be a mug’s game. There was a splendid swirl of authoritative reports about bailout talks and rebuttals by various Irish spokesmen, sampled here. But here we are: no bailout, with the Irish government […]

Robert Shiller Advocates and Engages in NewSpeak and Dubious Analysis in NYT Piece

As an article in today’s New York Times makes clear, Robert Shiller has joined a group of behavioral economists that is advocating the use of propaganda and the sublter forms of manipulation of the public that Walter Lippmann famously called “the manufacture of consent.” In one sense, this ugly development is coming full circle. Lippmann […]

Perfect Storm – February 2013?

A cross-post courtesy of market veteran (and occasional robust NC commenter) Bruce Krasting I wish I could get a penny for every dollar that is going to be paid to lobbyist to fight the various recommendations of the Fiscal Commission. As advertised, they basically took no prisoners save a small portion of the older population […]

Part 2 of Real News Network Interview: “The Turkey Votes for Thanksgiving”

Hope you enjoy the second part of our discussion on Real News Network. Part 1 is here. More at The Real News

Alford: The Fed Tests The Thesis That Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right, But Three Do

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 […]

We Speak to Real News Network About QE2

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

John Hussman on QE2, Bernanke’s Recklessness, and the Fed’s Constitution-Abusing Quasi-Fiscal Role

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 […]

QE2: Bernanke Cuts Geithner Off at the Knees

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 […]

Fed Statements Side By Side

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 […]