Tag Archives: inflation

I can't resist this. Blithely ignoring the utter mess he and his developers have managed to make of the cryptocurrency Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin has written a post on inflation and monetary policy. Wow. Is there no end to his talents? In this case, there is most definitely an end. Economics 101 is the end, pretty much. I don't claim to be the world's greatest economic expert - not by a LONG way - but the errors in this piece leapt out at me.  Firstly, inflation. Here is Buterin on...

Guest post by Ari Andricopoulos It is difficult to read the history of inter-war Europe and the US without feeling a deep sense of foreboding about the future of the Eurozone. What is the Eurozone if not a new gold standard, lacking even the flexibility to readjust the peg? For the war reparations demanded at Versailles, or the war debts owed by France and the UK to the US, we see the huge debts owed by the South of Europe to the North, particularly Germany. The growth model of the...

From the Federal Reserve Board press release: "The Committee currently expects that, with gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will expand at a moderate pace and labor market indicators will continue to strengthen. However, global economic and financial developments continue to pose risks. Inflation is expected to remain low in the near term, in part because of earlier declines in energy prices, but to rise to 2 percent over the medium term as the...

Working their way a bit higher but still seriously depressed:With the year over year CPI increase now only 1% the Fed can only wait and see if headline will catch up to core and ‘justify’ their tightening bias. Consumer Price IndexHighlightsThe CPI core is showing pressure for a second month, up a higher-than-expected 0.3 percent in February with the year-on-year rate up 1 tenth to plus 2.3 percent and further above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent line.Gains are once again led by health...

Yesterday, HSBC prepared the ground for imposing negative rates on business depositors. This is an excerpt from HSBC's letter announcing the necessary change to the Terms & Conditions of HSBC business accounts:   Now, this requires some explanation. Firstly, the change applies only to BUSINESS accounts. Retail depositors are unaffected. Secondly, it applies only to currency accounts, not sterling accounts. And thirdly, despite HSBC's mention of "negative rates set by central...

One of the Fed’s mandates. The ‘headline’ number is below target due to the energy impulse, but the ‘core’ rate, led by services, is on target. The question is whether energy prices, if they remain at current levels, will ‘pull down’ other prices. And the comparisons with last year are now vs the lower numbers that were released after the oil price collapse. And not to forget that the Fed uses futures prices as indications of future spot prices, even for non perishables, which technically...

Excerpts from the Speech by Mario Draghi, President of the ECB, Economic Club of New York, 4 December 2015: There is no particular limit to how we can deploy any of our tools. True- limits are political And in this context it is important to recall that we operate under a clear framework of monetary dominance – we are ultimately driven by our mandate of maintaining price stability. True Indeed, it is inevitable that unconventional policy settings, ranging from negative interest rates to...

"The euro area economy is gradually emerging from a deep and protracted downturn. However, despite improvements over the last year, real GDP is still below the level of the first quarter of 2008. The picture is more striking still if one looks at where nominal growth would be now if pre-crisis trends had been maintained." So said Peter Praet, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, in a recent presentation to the FAROS Institutional Investors' Forum.He's not wrong. From his presentation,...

Part of the Fed’s mandate is to hit it’s 2% inflation target:Still at recession type levels:This is also what recession looks like:The anointed ‘driver of the economy’ continues to falter as previously discussed: Housing Market IndexHighlightsThe housing market index from the nation’s home builders shows weakness, at 62 for November and missing the Econoday consensus by 2 points. And compared to a revised October, the index is down 3 points. Yet readings in the report, though slowing,...

More deflation news here: PPI-FD Nothing good here, and of course sales = income, so lower sales = lower incomes. Also, the boost to prior months from car sales looks like it’s fading: Retail SalesHighlightsRetail sales slowed in October but fundamentally remain solid. Sales rose only 0.1 percent, 2 tenths under the Econoday consensus. But when excluding vehicles, which slipped back after surging in prior months, and when also excluding gasoline stations, where sales once again fell on...