I have to confess I find stereotyping annoying, and in almost all cases, it’s a poor substitute for more careful analysis and characterization. Yet it is marvelously effective in politics, as Karl Rove proved.
Read more...Over a week ago Lawrence Summers stunned the world of economics by the remarks he made at the IMF‘s 14th Annual Research Conference on the Economic Crisis, where he pronounced the dreaded “SS” words: “secular stagnation”.
Read more...France’s government is struggling to stay relevant….and Groupe BPCE may have provided an answer by telling Germany to pay up or exit the Eurozone.
Read more...A conversation with Phil Pilkington on Europe’s disgraceful triumphalism regarding Ireland’s ‘exit’ from its ‘bailout’
Read more...A report issued by McKinsey Global Institute last week on the real world impact of QE warrants more scrutiny than it has gotten so far.
Read more...We have now passed the event horizon into a world run by Dr. Pangloss. In a Sunday afternoon post, Paul Krugman enthusiastically endorses an IMF presentation by Larry Summers which depicts asset bubbles as necessary and desirable. And that means they both agree they should not only continue, they should be encouraged.
Read more...Yves here. I know I should write about Janet Yellen’s confirmation hearing, but I can’t stand to do it. Plus I am confident you’ll enjoy this piece more.
Read more...ves here. Pettis highlights the difficulties of restructuring the Chinese economy to feature more small business lending and consumption and calls them “political.” I’m not sure I agree fully.
Read more...A new era has dawned: there is now a consensus that this is a stock market bubble. We’re back where we were during the last bubble, or the one before it, though the jury is still out if this is February 2000 or October 1999 or sometime in 2007.
Read more...We are certain to hear more and more appraisals of Bernake’s tenure as Fed chairman as he approaches the end of his term. But will they use good benchmarks? We suggest measuring his performance against his claims for the Fed’s objectives and what he said the central bank could accomplish. Not surprisingly, we find that he came up short.
Read more...For a while now I have been arguing that Europe’s policies for reducing the public debts of fiscally stressed member-states can be described as a Ponzi austerity scheme. In this post I attempt precisely to define ‘Ponzi austerity’.
Read more...Yves here. As Hugh said via e-mail:
Read more...The report is actually two reports fundamentally at odds with each other.
It’s like taking a hammer to a tomato. One report says the tomato got smashed. The other report says the tomato got bigger. Which are you going to believe?
If a bad job market wasn’t damaging enough, the cost of paying off student loans does much more harm to the long-term prospects of young people than is commonly realized.
Read more...Yves here. This article is a portrait of official denial, which is then dutifully taken up and amplified by the media (well, not universally, but widely, as Ilargi’s post also demonstrates). It corroborates one of my pet theories: that we are at the end of an economic paradigm. The powers that be lack the will and imagination to do anything other than patch it up and put it back into operation. That simply assures more frequent breakdowns until the system is beyond repair.
Read more...Yves here. As much as the post below is a very useful recap of data in terms of the impact of QE, I need to hector “Unconventional Economist” for being pretty conventional. His headline question, whether intentionally or not, reinforces the notion that it was reasonable to think that QE, or super low rates generally (as in ZIRP) would lead to increase lending….
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