Tag Archive: Currency

2020-11-17

It was a shock, total disbelief given how everyone, and I mean everyone, had penciled China in as the world’s go-to growth engine. If the global economy was ever going to get off the ground again following GFC1 more than a half a decade before, the Chinese had to get back to their precrisis “normal.”

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China’s Financial Stability: A Squeeze and a Strangle

2019-11-27

2019-11-27

I do get a big kick out of the way Communists over in China announce how they are dealing with their enormous problems especially as they may be getting worse. Each month, for example, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) will publish figures on retail sales or industrial production at record lows but in the opening paragraphs the text will be full of praise for how the economy is being handled.

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Motte and Bailey Fallacy, Report 13 Oct

2019-10-15

2019-10-15

This week, we will delve into something really abstract. Not like monetary economics, which is so simple even a caveman can do it. We refer to a clever rhetorical trick. It’s when someone makes a broad and important assertion, in very general terms. But when challenged, the assertion is switched for one that is entirely uncontroversial but also narrow and unimportant.

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The Elephant in the Gold Room, Report 16 June

2019-06-17

2019-06-17

We will start this off with a pet peeve. Too often, one is reading something about gold. It starts off well enough, discussing problems with the dollar or the bond market or a real estate bubble… and them bam! Buy gold because the dollar is gonna be worthless! That number again is 1-800-BUY-GOLD or we have another 1-800-GOT-GOLD in case the lines on the first number are busy!

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February 2019 PBOC/RMB Update

2019-03-24

2019-03-24

This will serve mostly as an update to what is going on inside the Chinese monetary system. The PBOC’s balance sheet numbers for February 2019 are exactly what we’ve come to expect, ironically confirmed today on the domestic end by the FOMC’s dreaded dovishness. Therefore, rather than rewrite the same commentary for why this continues to happen I’ll just link to prior discussions.

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Modern Monetary Theory: A Cargo Cult, Report 20 Jan 2019

2019-01-28

2019-01-28

Newly elected Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) absolutely needed to be “a larger part of our conversation.” Her comment shines a spotlight on MMT. So what is it? According to Wikipedia, it is: “a macroeconomic theory that describes the currency as a public monopoly and unemployment as the evidence that a currency monopolist is restricting the supply of the financial assets needed to pay taxes...

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The Dollar Works Just Fine, Report 20 Jan 2019

2019-01-23

2019-01-23

Last week, we joked that we don’t challenge beliefs. Here’s one that we want to challenge today: the dollar doesn’t work as a currency, because it’s losing value. Even the dollar’s proponents, admit it loses value. The Fed itself states that its mandate is price stability—which it admits means relentless two percent annual debasement (Orwell would be proud).

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More Unmixed Signals

2019-01-06

2019-01-06

China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reports that the country’s official manufacturing PMI in December 2018 dropped below 50 for the first time since the summer of 2016. Many if not most associate a number in the 40’s with contraction. While that may or not be the case, what’s more important is the quite well-established direction.

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Sometimes Bad News Is Just Right

2018-12-16

2018-12-16

There is some hope among those viewing bad news as good news. In China, where alarms are currently sounding the loudest, next week begins the plenary session for the State Council and its working groups. For several days, Communist authorities will weigh all the relevant factors, as they see them, and will then come up with the broad strokes for economic policy in the coming year (2019).

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The Ultimate Stablecoin, Report 18 Nov 2018

2018-11-19

2018-11-19

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away we wrote a series of articles arguing that bitcoin is not money and is not sound. Bitcoin was skyrocketing at the time, as we wrote most of them between July 30 and Oct 1 last year. Back in those halcyon days, volatility was deemed to be a feature.

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If Bitcoin Is A Bubble…

2018-01-07

by Erik Norland

2018-01-07

Organizational Theorist Frederic Laloux’s Five Kinds of Human Organizations

Our earlier articles on bitcoin discuss the crypto asset as a currency and a commodity. Both papers focused on the consequences of bitcoin’s defining feature: the asymptotic supply limit of 21 million coins. This gives it an unusual juxtaposition of demand uncertainty and supply certainty (as well as inelasticity). As a currency, it gives rise to a tension between its use as a store of value and as medium of exchange.

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A Gold Guy’s View Of Crypto, Bitcoin, And Blockchain

2017-12-20

by Alex Stanczyk

2017-12-20

Bitcoin was on my radar far back as 2011, but for years, I didn’t think much of it. It was a curiosity. Nothing more. Sort of like the virtual money you use in World of Warcraft or something. In 2015, looking deeper, I slowly (not the sharpest tool in the shed) arrived at that “aha” inflection point that most advocates of honest money arrive at. I realized that a distributed public ledger has the power to change, well, everything.

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Buy Gold, Silver Time After Speculators Reduce Longs and Banks Reduce Shorts

2017-12-17

by GoldCore

2017-12-17

Concentration of Traders in the CFTC COTs

Gold and silver COT suggests bottoming and price rally coming. Speculators cut way back on long positions and added to short bets. Commercials/banks significantly reduced short positions. Commercial net short position saw biggest one-week decline in COMEX history. ‘Big 4’ commercial traders decreased their short positions by 28,800 contracts. Seasonally, January is generally a good month to own gold (see table). "If history is still reliable,...

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The Latte Index: Using The Impartial Bean To Value Currencies

2017-12-09

2017-12-09

Like any other market, there are many opinions on what a currency ought to be worth relative to others. With certain currencies, that spectrum of opinions is fairly narrow. As an example, for the world’s most traded currency – the U.S. dollar – the majority of opinions currently fall in a range from the dollar being 2% to 11% overvalued, according to organizations such as the Council of Foreign Relations, the Bank of International Settlements, the...

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Frustrated Investors File Lawsuits Against World’s Largest ICO

2017-12-05

2017-12-05

ere's the latest sign that the massively fraudulent ICO market is headed for a collapse. Tezos’s investors are still waiting to learn when they can expect to receive the digital tokens that they paid a premium for during the company’s record-setting crowdsale. But as reports of abuse, internal strife and outright embezzlement have surfaced in the press, three groups of angry investors have filed class action lawsuits accusing the company of fraud...

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What Gives Cryptocurrencies Their Value

2017-12-05

2017-12-05

The value of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, just like any other kind of money, comes fundamentally from what you can do with it. As a follow up to What Backs Bitcoin, I want to dig into that value. The idea, which comes from Austrian economist Carl Menger, is that just as a shovel’s value comes from its ability to dig, a currency’s value comes from its ability to help you do two things: transactions and savings.

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Bitcoin Tops $10,100 – Fed’s Powell Says “Cryptocurrencies Just Don’t Matter”

2017-12-03

2017-12-03

Update: Cryptocurrencies are widely bid tonight with Bitcoin over $10,150, Ether holding $475, and LiteCoin topping $100 for the first time. Bitcoin has now soared over 20% since Black Friday's close, topping $10,000 for the first time in history (rising from $9,000 in just 2 days)... now up over 950% year-to-date.

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Demographic Dysphoria: Swiss Village Offers Families Over $70,000 To Live There

2017-11-28