Tag Archive: debt

No Paradox, Economy to Debt to Assets

2017-03-11

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2017-03-11

Household Net Worth, April 1951 - 2016
It is surely one of the primary reasons why many if not most people have so much trouble accepting the trouble the economy is in. With record high stock prices leading to record levels of household net worth, it seems utterly inconsistent to claim those facts against a US economic depression.

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Jobless Claims Look Great, Until We Examine The Further Potential For What We Really, Really Don’t Want

2017-02-10

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2017-02-10

Initial Jobless Claims, January 1967 - January 2017
Initial jobless claims fell to just 234k for the week of February 4, nearly matching the 233k multi-decade low in mid-November. That brought the 4-week moving average down to just 244k, which was a new low going all the way back to the early 1970’s. Jobless claims seemingly stand in sharp contrast to other labor market figures which have been suggesting an economic slowdown for nearly two years.

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BIS: The VIX is Dead, The Dollar is the new “Fear Indicator”

2016-11-20

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2016-11-20

Leverage of US securities broker-dealer sector
Over the past few years, one of the recurring themes on this website has been an ongoing discussion of how the VIX has lost its predictive value as a market risk indicator. This culminated recently with a note by Russel Clark who explained in clear term why the "VIX is now broken." Today, in a fascinating note Hyun Song Shin, head of research at the Bank for International Settlements, the "central banks' central bank" has agreed with the...

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China: Services Companies Benefit on Lower Tax with VAT introduction

2016-05-02

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2016-05-02

Yesterday, China announced one of the most important tax reforms of the past twenty years.  It is replacing a business tax on gross revenue for non-manufacturing companies with a VAT.   Manufacturing companies have been subject to a VAT approach subject

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Great Graphic: Measuring Cost of Extend and Pretend

2016-04-26

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2016-04-26

There is a debate.  On one hand is Summers, who argues that modern economies have entered an era of secular stagnation.  Full utilization of the factors of production and particularly capital and labor is not possible without stimulating aggregate demand in a way that facilitates bubbles.  The broad strokes of the argument can be found …

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The Fed and the Cotton Candy Market

For Keith Weiner the Federal Reserve operates like a Cotton Candy Machine for the housing market. It creates a massive bubble, financed with debt. It spins the price of a house, with the help of credit and debt, into something many times its original size.

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Goethe Predicted Dollar Slavery

goethe slaves debt and money supply, m1 m2 m3 money
In 1809 Goethe wrote "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." According to Keith Weiner, this is today's status of American workers, stuck with debt and the losing value of the dollar.

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How Long Will the Dollar Be the Major World Reserve Currency? A Look at Wealth

dollar collapse
We examine how long the U.S. Dollar will remain the unique world reserve currency. The most important criterion for being a reserve currency is wealth. While China has recently overtaken the U.S. as for inflation-adjusted GDP, in the next step, it will overtake the U.S. as for wealth.

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2002-2011: Boom of Emerging Markets and Commodities

us current account germany


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Swiss Franc History: Volcker Shock, Oil Glut and the Breakdown of Gold and Emerging Markets

gold inflation
After the Volcker moment or sometimes called "Volcker shock", commodity prices plunged, the gold price collapsed. Thanks to additional supply, e.g. from Northsea oil, a so-called oil glut appeared. After the increase of debt in the 1970s, some economies in Southern America collapsed. The major reason was Volcker's tight monetary policy with high interest rates and the dependency on US funds.

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New Arthurian Economics and Martin Wolf’s “Strip banks of power to create money”

new arthurian economics debt per dollar m1


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El-Erian: The New Normal



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European Banking Assets and Debt

Reliance of Foreign Funding Italy Spain
Still in summer 2013, too much debt was an issue. By 2014 things have changed: Europeans have too many savings.

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Who is the Biggest Debt Time Bomb: Japan, France, the UK or the United States?

2012-12-16

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2012-12-16

picture 3
Some must reads: According to the Economist the biggest time bomb in the euro zone crisis is France. We wonder why the United States and Britain, that have same weak trade balances, the same weak competitiveness and a debt overhang, shouldn't have a problem? Just because France must do austerity according to the German Fiscal Compact wish, and the US and Britain do not need to do this? Or like Ray Dalio called it, are the US and Britain...

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The Balance Sheet Recession: UK Q2 Housing Equity Injection Largest Since Q2 2011

2012-12-03

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2012-12-03

Gross Flow Withdrawals Injections BoE UK
The American-Taiwanese economist Richard Koo, is the chief-economist of the Nomura Research Institute. In his theory of the Balance Sheet Recession he distinguishes between the “Yang” phase of the economy and the “Yin” phase (the so-called “balance sheet recession”). In “Yang” times companies want to increase profit and people consume a big part of their pay …

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Don’t Sell Economic Stability to Buy Economic Growth, Warns Tomáš Sedláček

Tomas Sedlacek 3
Don’t sell economic stability to buy economic growth,” warned Tomáš Sedláček, chief macroeconomic strategist at CSOB Bank. Sedláček’s unconventional view is that our problem is not lack of growth but too much of it. See more at the

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The Eurozone crisis between euro-morons and zombie-bankers

Meuron Zombie Rybinski


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IMF World Economic Outlook

2012-10-10

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2012-10-10

Recession Deflation Danger IMF World Economic Outlook
Alexander Gloy is founder and president of Lighthouse Investment Management       The IMF’s (International Monetary Fund) “World Economic Outlook”, a slim 250-page piece, came out. Some excerpts: Substantial reductions in estimated output (GDP) growth for 2013 for all major countries:   Unemployment in the Euro-Area (“EA”) is now expected to rise above the level …

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