Tag Archives: dot com bubble

TANSTAAFL is an acronym for “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”. It has been around a long time – Rudyard Kipling used it in an essay in 1891 – but it was popularized by Robert Heinlein’s 1966 book, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. In economics it most often refers to tradeoffs or opportunity costs; resources are scarce and if you choose to use them in one way they aren’t available for an alternate use. The other way the phrase is often used is to describe a...

With the eurodollar futures curve slightly inverted, the implications of it are somewhat specific to the features of that particular market. And there’s more than enough reason to reasonably suspect this development is more specifically deflationary money than more general economic concerns. What I mean is, those latter have come later (“growth scare”) only long after the world’s real money truly began to dry up. Money then economy. How do we know? For one, sequence...

US inflation in January 2019 was, according to the CPI, the lowest in years. At just 1.55% year-over-year, the index hadn’t suggested this level since September 2016 right at the outset of what would become Reflation #3. Having hyped expectations over that interim, US policymakers now have to face the repercussions of unwinding the hysteria. CPI Changes On Energy 2016-2019 - Click to enlarge Live by oil, now die by...

What makes a stock bubble is really two parts. Most people might think those two parts are money and mania, but actually money supply plays no direct role. Perceptions about money do, even if mistaken as to what really takes place monetarily from time to time. In fact, for a bubble that would make sense; people are betting in stocks on one monetary view that isn’t real, and therefore prices don’t match what’s really...