Tag Archives: 5) Global Macro

Discussions on President Biden’s proposed $1.9 trln fiscal package are getting off to a rocky start; Fed manufacturing surveys for January will continue to roll out ECB Governing Council member Olli Rehn viewed yield curve control for the region as “not sensible”; on the virus front, Norway tightened mobility restrictions, France looks set to impose another lockdown, and the UK considering closing borders; Germany IFO survey for January came in slightly lower than...

Joe Biden became the 46th President of the US; three Democratic Senators were also sworn in; weekly jobless claims data will be the highlight of an otherwise quiet week; Fed manufacturing surveys for January will continue to roll out; Brazil kept rates on hold at 2.0%, as expected ECB is expected to keep policy unchanged; Norges Bank kept rates steady at 0%, as expected; Chancellor Sunak is reportedly drawing up plans to extend support for the UK labor market in...

President-elect Biden will be inaugurated and becomes the 46th President of the United States at noon; he will hit the ground running by announcing a raft of executive orders upon taking office; Janet Yellen’s confirmation hearing was revealing; Canada and Brazil are expected to keep rates unchanged Italian political tensions appear to have calmed; German government announced a hardening of mobility restrictions; UK reported December CPI BOJ began its two-day...

Allow me to translate the risible claims of Jay Powell and Janet Yellen that their stimulus policies haven’t boosted wealth inequality to the moon: “Let them eat cake.” The euphoria of ever greater monetary and fiscal stimulus overlooks the diminishing returns and higher risks generated by near-exponential increases in stimulus. I prepared a chart that graphically displays the extraordinary increases in stimulus and the declining results in the primary goals of...

President-elect Biden will be inaugurated Wednesday; security in Washington DC and many state capitols has been beefed up due to concerns of violence; the Senate reconvenes Tuesday and will immediately begin work on confirming Biden’s cabinet choices; reports suggest that if asked, Yellen will disavow a weak dollar policy whilst affirming commitment to a market-determined exchange rate Weekly jobless claims data Thursday will be the highlight of an otherwise quiet...

If you don’t discern any of these dynamics in the present, what are you choosing not to see? The reason why history rhymes is that humanity is still using Wetware 1.0 and so humans respond to scarcity, abundance and conflicts over them in the same manner. I am struck by similarities between the conflict-torn mid-1600s and the present: global climate change (The Little Ice Age in the 1600s), political upheavals and wars which intertwined civil and imperial conflicts....

House Democrats will move ahead with impeachment proceedings today; December CPI data will be the US highlight; heavy UST supply this week wraps up with a $24 bln sale of 30-year bonds; December monthly budget statement will be of interest the Fed releases its Beige Book report; several Fed officials pushed back against notions of tapering anytime soon Italian political noise continues; UK and Germany warned of more restrictive measures; Russia will restart its...

The US curve continues to steepen; real US yields have become less negative; UST supply will remain an issue as $38 bln of 10-year notes will be sold today; Brazil reports December IPCA inflation Yields in Europe and UK are following the trend higher in the US markets, but not as fast; Italy is facing another bout of political instability; BOE Governor Bailey pushed back against negative rates Japan’s government will declare a state of emergency for Osaka, Kyoto, and...

If we have indeed begun a sustained “reversal of fortune”, it might be prudent to consider the possibility we’re only in the first inning of a sustained run of back luck.In our self-deluded hubris, we reckon we’ve moved beyond the influence of fortune, a.k.a. Lady Luck: our technologies are so powerful and our monetary policies so godlike that nothing as random as luck could ever crush our limitless expansion. Thus does hubris beg for a comeuppance: the greater the...

All the tricks to hide our unaffordable cost structure have reached marginal returns. Reality is about to intrude. There is much talk of tyranny in the political realm, but little is said about the tyrannies in the economic realm, a primary one being the tyranny of high costs: high costs crush the economy from within and enslave those attempting to start enterprises or keep their businesses afloat. Traditionally, costs are broken down into fixed costs such as rent...