Tag Archive: lsap

Tapering Or Calibrating, The Lady’s Not Inflating

2021-10-07

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2021-10-07

We’ve got one central bank over here in America which appears as if its members can’t wait to “taper”, bringing up both the topic and using that particular word as much as possible. Jay Powell’s Federal Reserve obviously intends to buoy confidence by projecting as much when it does cut back on the pace of its (irrelevant) QE6.

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Accusing the Accused of Excusing the Mountain of Evidence

2020-08-03

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2020-08-03

Germany Federal Securities, 2018-2020
Why not let the accused also sit in the jury box? The answer seems rather obvious. While maybe the truly honest man accused of a crime he did commit would vote for his own conviction, the world seems a bit short on supply of those while long and deep offering up practitioners of pure sophistry in their stead.

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Tidbits Of Further Warnings: Houston, We (Still) Have A (Repo) Problem

2019-10-18

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2019-10-18

Federal Reserve Balance Sheet, 2001-2019
Despite the name, the Fed doesn’t actually intervene in the US$ repo market. I know they called them overnight repo operations, but that’s only because they mimic repo transactions not because the central bank is conducting them in that specific place. What really happened was FRBNY allotting bank reserves (in exchange for UST, MBS, and agency collateral) only to the 24 primary dealers.

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What Really Happened In Europe

2018-05-10

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2018-05-10

Europe Real Gross Domestic Product, Jan 1995 - May 2018
The primary example of globally synchronized growth has been Europe. Nowhere has more hope been attached to shifting fortunes. The Continent, buoyed by the persistence of central bankers like Mario Draghi, has not just accelerated it is actually booming. Or so they say.

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Transitory’s Japanese Cousin

2018-05-01

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2018-05-01

Inflation in Japan, Jan 2011 - Apr 2018
Thomas Hoenig was President of the Federal Reserve’s Kansas City branch for two decades. He left that post in 2011 to become Vice Chairman of the FDIC. Before that, Mr. Hoenig as a voting member of the FOMC in 2010 cast the lone dissenting vote in each of the eight policy meetings that year (meaning he was against QE2, too). This makes him, apparently, the hawk of all hawks.

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Europe Is Booming, Except It’s Not

2017-11-07

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2017-11-07

Eurozone Gross Domestic Product, 1996 - 2017
European GDP rose 0.6% quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2017, the eighteenth consecutive increase for the Continental (EA 19) economy. That latter result is being heralded as some sort of achievement, though the 0.6% is also to a lesser degree. The truth is that neither is meaningful, and that Europe’s economy continues toward instead the abyss.

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Global Inflation Continues To Underwhelm

2017-10-19

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2017-10-19

Another Side of China, Aug 2016 - Oct 2017
Chinese producer prices accelerated in September 2017, while consumer price increases slowed. The National Bureau of Statistics reported this weekend that China’s PPI was up 6.9% year-over-year, a quicker pace than the 6.3% estimated for August and a 5.5% rate in July. Earlier in the year producer prices were driven mostly by 2016’s oil rebound, along with those in the rest of the global economy, but in recent months there has been more influence...

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Why The Fed’s Balance Sheet Reduction Is As Irrelevant As Its Expansion

2017-09-27

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2017-09-27

Japan Monetary Base, Jan 2013 - 2017, US Versus Canada Real GDP, 2007 - 2017
The FOMC is widely expected to vote in favor of reducing the system’s balance sheet this week. The possibility has been called historic and momentous, though it may be for reasons that aren’t very kind to these central bankers. Having started to swell almost ten years ago, it’s a big deal only in that after so much time here they still are having these kinds of discussions.

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