Category Archive: 5) Global Macro

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Homeless Encampments and Luxury Apartments: Our Long Strange Boom

2019-02-23

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2019-02-23

US Median Household Income
It's been a long, strange economic boom since the nadir of the Global Financial Meltdown in 2009. A 10-year long boom that saw the S&P 500 rise from 666 in early 2009 to 2,780 and GDP rise by 43% has been slightly more uneven for most participants.

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FOMC Minutes: The New Narrative Takes Shape

2019-02-22

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2019-02-22

Money Markets Equivalents 2009-2018
Nothing the Fed did today, or has done up to today, has changed the curves. Eurodollar futures and UST’s, they are both still inverted. The former sharply inverted. The only thing that has changed since early January is the narrative – and not in a charitable way. It is treated as a positive when it is a pretty visible signal about deteriorating circumstances.

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Something Different About This One

2019-02-22

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2019-02-22

China Retail Sales, Automobiles 2001-2018
In Japan, they call it “powerful monetary easing.” In practice, it is anything but. QQE with all its added letters is so authoritative that it is knocked sideways by the smallest of economic and financial breezes. If it truly worked the way it was supposed to, the Bank of Japan or any central bank would only need it for the shortest of timeframes.

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Getting Back Up To Speed On Loss Of Speed in US Economy

2019-02-21

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2019-02-21

U.S Industrial Production Real Personal Income Vehicle Sales, Jan 2010
For much of 2018, the idea of “overseas turmoil” lived up to its name. At least in economic terms. Market-wise, there was a lot domestically to draw anyone’s honest attention. Warnings were everywhere by the end of the year. And that was what has been at issue. Some said Europe and China are on their own, the US is cocooned in a tax cut-fueled boom. Decoupling, only now the other way around.

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Space: the next frontier for war? | The Economist

2019-02-20

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President Trump has just announced plans to create a new military Space Force, increasing the prospect of a new theatre of war. How might war in space be fought? Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: https://econ.st/2xvTKdy The 1,300 active satellites above the earth provide a wide array of services – some of …

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Credit Exhaustion Is Global

2019-02-20

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2019-02-20

China and US Assets
Europe is awash in credit exhaustion, and so is China. The signs are everywhere: credit exhaustion is global, and that means the global growth story is over: revenues and profits are all sliding as lending dries up and defaults pile up.

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China’s Big Money Gamble

2019-02-19

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2019-02-19

World Bank Pink Sheet Commodity Indices 1995-2019
While oil prices rebounded in January 2019 around the world, outside of crude commodities continued to struggle. According to the World Bank’s Pink Sheet, base metal prices fell another 1.8% on average from December. On an annual basis, these commodities as a group are about 16% below where they were in January 2018.

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Retail Sales Landmine

2019-02-18

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2019-02-18

Retail Sales, NSA 2011-2018
Ignore Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Those are merely an appetizer, an intentional preamble to whet the appetite of hungry consumers looking to splurge. The real action comes in December. People look, some buy, after Thanksgiving, but as anyone counts down the actual twelve days of Christmas and celebrates the eight crazy nights of Hanukkah that’s when the retail industry makes its bank.

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?Charles Hugh Smith It’s Fraud and Theft,The Central Banks Get Special Set Of Laws To Steal Our Wea

2019-02-17

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?Charles Hugh Smith It’s Fraud and Theft,The Central Banks Get Special Set Of Laws To Steal Our Wea ?Charles Hugh Smith It’s Fraud and Theft,The Central Banks Get Special Set Of Laws To Steal Our Wea ?Charles Hugh Smith It’s Fraud and Theft,The Central Banks Get Special Set Of Laws To Steal Our Wea

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What Happens When More QE Fails to Reverse the Recession?

2019-02-17

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2019-02-17

All Sectors; Debt Securities and Loans; Liability, Level 1960-2018
The smart money is liquidating assets, paying off debt and moving capital into collateral that isn't impaired by debt or speculative valuations. The Federal Reserve's sudden return to "accommodative" dovishness in response to the stock market's swoon telegraphs its intent to fire up QE once the recession kicks into gear.

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Inflation Falls Again, Dot-com-like

2019-02-16

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2019-02-16

CPI Changes On Energy 2016-2019
US inflation in January 2019 was, according to the CPI, the lowest in years. At just 1.55% year-over-year, the index hadn’t suggested this level since September 2016 right at the outset of what would become Reflation #3. Having hyped expectations over that interim, US policymakers now have to face the repercussions of unwinding the hysteria.

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SpokenTome Audiobooks: Charles Hugh Smith Episode 2

2019-02-15

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SpokenTome.Media’s Mark E. Jeftovic catches up with Charles Hugh Smith. Topics ranged from PropOrNot’s anonymous, unsourced hit piece on …pretty well everybody, to populism, Yellow Vests, so-called “Democratic Socialism” and a new unicorn farm called “MMT”. Since our last episode we’ve released three more CHS audiobooks.

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How Islam in the West is changing | The Economist

2019-02-15

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Islamist terrorism has fractured relations between Islam and the West. Robert Guest, our foreign editor, explains how Western Muslims are gradually becoming more liberal. Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: https://econ.st/2xvTKdy For more from Economist Films visit: http://films.economist.com/ Check out The Economist’s full video catalogue: http://econ.st/20IehQk Like The Economist on Facebook:...

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What Caused the Recession of 2019-2021?

2019-02-15

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2019-02-15

Federal Debt Total Public Debt, 1970 - 2018
As I discussed in We're Overdue for a Sell-Everything/No-Fed-Rescue Recession, recessions have a proximate cause and a structural cause. The proximate cause is often a spike in energy costs (1973, 1990) or a financial crisis triggered by excesses of speculation and debt (2000 and 2008) or inflation (1980).

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The search for new planets | The Economist

2019-02-14

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A new space telescope could discover thousands of planets. But will they support life? TESS may reveal the next clues to finding out. Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: https://econ.st/2xvTKdy For more from Economist Films visit: http://films.economist.com/ Check out The Economist’s full video catalogue: http://econ.st/20IehQk Like The Economist on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheEconomist/ Follow …

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The Corporate Lemmings Who Rushed into Mobile/Social Media Ads Are Running off the Cliff

2019-02-14

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2019-02-14

Smartphone Addiction
Given that corporations are run by people, and people are social animals that run in herds, it shouldn't surprise us that corporations follow the herd, too. Take the herd move to forming conglomerates in the go-go late 1960s: corporations suddenly started buying companies in completely different sectors in businesses they knew nothing about, because the herd was forming conglomerates--not because it made any business sense but because it was the...

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Can free-cash handouts help society? | The Economist

2019-02-13

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In parts of California there are plans to give people no-strings-attached cash, whether they have a job or not. It’s hoped these trials could be the solution to a potentially jobless dystopian future. Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: https://econ.st/2xvTKdy For more from Economist Films visit: http://films.economist.com/ Check out The Economist’s full …

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China: Harbinger of Global Economic Decline

2019-02-13

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2019-02-13

China's Slowing Economy
The latest numbers released by China’s statistics bureau fueled widespread concerns about the outlook of the global economy, as the Asian superpower reported its slowest growth rate since 1990. The figures showed a 6.6% growth for 2018, confirming the view that the growth engine of the world economy is running out of steam.

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We’re Overdue for a Sell-Everything/No-Fed-Rescue Recession

2019-02-12

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2019-02-12

Federal government 2005-2015
We're way overdue for a sell-everything recession, one that the Fed will only make worse by pursuing its usual policies of lowering interest rates and goosing easy money. As I noted last week, central banks, like generals, always fight the last war--until the war is lost. 

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2019: The Three Trends That Matter

2019-02-11

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2019-02-11

Look no further than Brexit in Britain, the yellow vests in France and the Deplorables in the U.S. for manifestations of a broken social contract and decaying social order. Among the many trends currently in play, Gordon Long and I discuss three that will matter as 2019 progresses: 2019 Themes (56 minutes).

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