Tag Archives: Federal Reserve

In its latest annual summary published at the end of June, the IIF found that total nominal global debt had risen to a new all time high of $217 trillion, or 327% of global GDP... ... largely as a result of an unprecedented increase in emerging market leverage. While the continued growth in debt in zero interest rate world is hardly surprising, what was notable is that debt within the developed world appeared to have peaked, if not declined modestly in the latest 5 year period. However,...

Princeton University economist Alan Krueger recently published and presented his paper for Brookings on the opioid crisis and its genesis. Having been declared a national emergency, there are as many economic as well as health issues related to the tragedy. Economists especially those at the Federal Reserve are keen to see this drug abuse as socio-demographic in nature so as to be absolved from failing in their primary...

In January 2016, just as the wave of “global turmoil” was cresting on domestic as well as foreign shores, retired Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was giving a series of lectures for the IMF. His topic wasn’t really the so-called taper tantrum of 2013 but it really was. Even ideologically blinded economists like Bernanke could see how one might have followed the other; the roots of 2016 in 2013. In May and June of...

Summary: Following strong Q2 GDP figures, risk is that Bank of Canada’s rate hike anticipated for October is brought forward. ECB’s guidance to that it will have to extend its purchases into next year will continue to evolve. Among Fed officials speaking ahead of the blackout period, Brainard and Dudley’s comments are the most important. Four central banks from high income countries hold policy is making...

This week the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release updated estimates for Q2 GDP as well as Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) and Personal Incomes for July. Accompanying those latter two accounts is the currently preferred inflation standard for the US economy. The PCE Deflator finally hit 2% and in two consecutive months, after revisions, earlier this year. - Click to enlarge  The inability of consumer...

The consensus narrative from the Jackson Hole Symposium was the Yellen and Draghi used their speeches to argue against dismantling financial regulation and the drift toward protectionism. Many cast this as a push against US President Trump, but this may be too narrow understanding. Many investors were looking for policy clues, but these were not forthcoming. The December Fed funds futures contract was unchanged,...

Summary Yellen has identified two challenges regarding the US labor market, the opioid epidemic and women participation in the labor force. The topic of the Jackson Hole gathering lends itself more to a discussion of these issues than the nuances of monetary policy. Dynamic world growth needs a dynamic US economy, and that requires more serious thinking about these socio-economic and political issues. The topic at...

U.S. Treasury Secretary: I Assume Fort Knox Gold Is Still There US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin visits Fort Knox Gold Later tweeted ‘Glad gold is safe!’ Only the third Treasury Secretary to visit the fortified vault, last visit was 1948 Last Congressional visit was 1974 Speculation over existence of gold in Fort Knox is rife Concerns over Federal Reserves lack of interest in carrying to an audit on gold Gold was last counted in 1953, nine years before Mnuchin was born Mnuchin may be...

Accounts of the financial crisis leave out the story of the secretive deals between banks that kept the show on the road. How long can the system be propped up for? - Click to enlarge It is a decade since the first tremors of what would become the Great Financial Crisis began to convulse global markets. Across the world from China and South Korea, to Ukraine, Greece, Brexit Britain and Trump’s America it has shaken...

How do we measure what has been lost over the last ten years? There is no single way to calculate it, let alone a correct solution. There are so many sides to an economy that choosing one risks overstating that facet at the expense of another. It’s somewhat of an impossible task already given the staggering dimensions. If someone had told you in 2006 that the Federal Reserve as well as all its central bank cohorts...