Tag Archive: inflation

2019-01-13

We’ve got to change our ornithological nomenclature. Hawks become doves because they are chickens underneath. Doves became hawks for reasons they don’t really understand. A fingers-crossed policy isn’t a robust one, so there really was no reason to expect the economy to be that way.

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Living In The Present

2019-01-08

2019-01-08

It’s that time of year again, time to cast the runes, consult the iChing, shake the Magic Eight Ball and read the tea leaves. What will happen in 2019? Will it be as bad as 2018 when positive returns were hard to come by, as rare as affordable health care or Miami Dolphin playoff games? Will China’s economy succumb to the pressure of US tariffs and make a deal?

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Why Do Investors Tolerate It, Report 17 Dec 2018

2018-12-18

2018-12-18

For the first time since we began publishing this Report, it is a day late. We apologize. Keith has just returned Saturday from two months on the road. Unlike the rest of the world, we define inflation as monetary counterfeiting. We do not put the emphasis on quantity (and the dollar is not money, it’s a currency). We focus on the quality. An awful lot of our monetary counterfeiting occurs to fuel consumption spending.

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China Going Back To 2011

2018-12-13

2018-12-13

China PBOC Balance Sheet and CPI, Nov 2006 - 2018

The enormous setback hadn’t yet been fully appreciated in March 2012 when China’s Premiere Wen Jiabao spoke to and on behalf of the country’s Communist governing State Council. Despite it having been four years since Bear Stearns had grabbed the whole world’s attention (for reasons the whole world wouldn’t fully comprehend, specifically as to why the whole world would need to care about the shadow “dollar” business of one US investment “bank”) the...

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Inflation, Report 2 Dec 2018

2018-12-03

2018-12-03

What is inflation? Any layman can tell you—and nearly everyone uses it this way in informal speech—that inflation is rising prices. Some will say “due to devaluation of the money.” Economists will say, no it’s not rising prices per se. That is everywhere and always the effect. The cause, the inflation as such, is an increase in the quantity of money. Which is the same thing as saying devaluation.

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Monthly Macro Monitor – November 2018

2018-11-30

2018-11-30

Is the Fed’s monetary tightening about over? Maybe, maybe not but there does seem to be some disagreement between Jerome Powell and his Vice Chair, Richard Clarida. Powell said just a little over a month ago that the Fed Funds rate was still “a long way from neutral” and that the Fed may ultimately need to go past neutral.

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Eurodollar Futures: Powell May Figure It Out Sooner, He Won’t Have Any Other Choice

2018-11-20

2018-11-20

Eurodollar Futures Curve, May - Sep 2018

For Janet Yellen, during her somewhat brief single term she never made the same kind of effort as Ben Bernanke had. Her immediate predecessor, Bernanke, wanted to make the Federal Reserve into what he saw as the 21st century central bank icon. Monetary policy wouldn’t operate on the basis of secrecy and ambiguity. Transparency became far more than a buzzword.

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Another ‘Highest In Ten Years’

2018-11-01

2018-11-01

Upon the precipice of the Great “Recession”, US workers were cushioned to some extent by what economists call sticky wages. Before the Great Depression, as well as during it, companies would attempt to deal with looming economic contraction by cutting pay rates before workers.

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Monthly Macro Monitor – October 2018

2018-10-24

2018-10-24

Stocks have stumbled into October with the S&P 500 down about 6% as I write this. The source of equity investors’ angst is always hard to pinpoint and this is no exception but this correction doesn’t seem to be due to concerns about economic growth. At least not directly.

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Textbook Falling Interest Behavior

2018-10-04

2018-10-04

This is a textbook case. Well, it would be if there was a textbook that presented the dynamics of the rising and falling interest rate cycles. Costco is spending over a quarter billion dollars, to make a capital investment in chicken processing. This is not the typical entrepreneurial investment, which seeks to increase margins by serving an unserved or underserved demand.

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Monthly Macro Monitor – September

2018-09-20

by Marcelo Perez

2018-09-20

Economic Growth & Investment September 20

This has already been one of the longest economic expansions on record for the US and there is little in the data or markets to indicate that is about to come to an end. Current levels of the yield curve are comparable to late 2005 in the last cycle. It was almost two years later before we even had an inkling of a problem and even in the summer of 2008 – nearly three years later – there was still a robust debate about whether the US could avoid...

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Downslope CPI

2018-09-16

2018-09-16

Cushing, OK, delivered what it could for the CPI. The contribution to the inflation rate from oil prices was again substantial in August 2018. The energy component of the index gained 10.3% year-over-year, compared to 11.9% in July. It was the fourth straight month of double digit gains.

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ECB (Data) Independence

2018-09-15

2018-09-15

Mario Draghi doesn’t have a whole lot going for him, but he is at least consistent – at times (yes, inconsistent consistency). Bloomberg helpfully reported yesterday how the ECB’s staff committee that produces the econometric projections has recommended the central bank’s Governing Council change the official outlook. Since last year, risks have been “balanced” in their collective opinion.

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Inflation ist nicht Inflation

2018-09-10

by Markus Diem Meier

2018-09-10

Das südamerikanische Land Venezuela führt gerade vor, was geschehen kann, wenn die Inflation ausser Kontrolle gerät. Der Internationale Währungsfonds rechnet bis Ende Jahr mit einer Teuerung von 1 Million Prozent. Eine solche Inflation wird etwa erreicht, wenn sich das Preisniveau rund alle vier Wochen verdoppelt. Wenn sich Geld in einem solchen Ausmass entwertet, verliert es jeden Nutzen, denn dann kann es seine Funktionen als Mittel zur...

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As Emerging Market Currencies Collapse, Gold is being Mobilized

2018-09-03

by Ronan Manly

2018-09-03

In recent weeks, global financial markets have been increasingly spooked by an intensifying crisis in emerging market currencies including those of Turkey and Argentina. Add to this the ongoing currency crisis in Venezuela and the currency problems of Iran.

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Why Am I Fighting for the Gold Standard?

2018-08-31

2018-08-31

Life is good. They could not have imagined what we have now, back in the dark ages. So I have never understood why people prep for a return to the dark ages. The only thing I can think of is that they don’t really picture what life is like. 14 hours a day of back-breaking labor to eke out a subsistence living. Subject to the risks of rain, sun, and insects.

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Monthly Macro Monitor – August 2018

2018-08-17

2018-08-17

The Q2 GDP report (+4.1% from the previous quarter, annualized) was heralded by the administration as a great achievement and certainly putting a 4 handle on quarter to quarter growth has been rare this cycle, if not unheard of (Q4 ’09, Q4 ’11, Q2 & Q3 ’14). But looking at the GDP change year over year shows a little different picture (2.8%).

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Monetary Paradigm Reset, Report 5 August 2018

2018-08-07

2018-08-07

Keith Weiner’s weekly look on Gold. Gold and silver prices, Gold-Silver Price Ratio, Gold basis and co-basis and the dollar price, Silver basis and co-basis and the dollar price.

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Bi-Weekly Economic Review

2018-07-20