The Daily Links Post: 2010-12-08
These first posts are on QE. My view is that QE won’t work. The fundamentals are negative for a lot more credit growth and the Fed has concentrated on QE quantity instead of QE price i.e. rate. The result, predictably, is that rates are not lower. In fact, they are higher. Bernanke has made a hash of explaining QE to the American people. Instead of defensively saying the Fed is not printing money, he should have said, "yes we are adding to the monetary base. But we can only do so much." Isn’t that what he’s been saying? I don’t get it. Why did he start obfuscating at this critical juncture?
As far as the tax cuts go, they will boost the economy somewhat and the payroll tax cut was nice to see. Last January I wrote this up as "What President Obama can do to improve the economy." saying a payroll tax cut would be good. Note that giving it to employees instead of employers is less likely to boost jobs and more likely to boost demand.
QE Posts
Credit Writedowns
- Hellmeyer Interview Part 2: The uber-bullish case for the global economy and real assets
- Russia Moving Toward WTO Membership
- Brazil Rate Hike Chatter Picks Up
- Rise in Bond Yields Drives Dollar Strength
- Forecasting the Future
- Jobs and Taxes
The Usual Fare
- Andrew Ross Sorkin: Fraud Triggered the Financial Crisis : CJR
- Illusion of Truth — PsyBlog
- BBC News – Wikileaks’ IT firm threatens to sue Visa and Mastercard
- Who’s reading your Twitter DMs? | Technology | guardian.co.uk
- WikiLeaks: Winning the Info War Despite Assange’s Arrest – TIME
- Hackers take down website of bank that froze WikiLeaks funds | Raw Story
- EconomPic: The Consumer Credit Split
- The Plum Line – Obama administers a stern scolding to lefty critics
- Bernanke’s 21-Month U-Turn Takes 60 Minutes: Commentary by Caroline Baum – Bloomberg
- Secret GOP plan: Push states to declare bankruptcy and smash unions | Analysis & Opinion |
- Qualitative Easing: Analysis Of Fed Data And What Kind Of Assets Its Accepting As Collateral | Markets | Minyanville.com
- Cantona fracasa, no hay retiradas masivas de dinero
Read more: https://www.creditwritedowns.com/news-feed/#ixzz17XpK04F6
“You knew this would happen eventually: Eurozone debt fears infect German bonds”
ähm, what?! the 30 year bund is still returning less than 3,5% and the 10 year topping 3% shouldn’t really be shocking. You have to lend germany more than 5 years to get more than 2% interest rates. I seriously don’t understand how one can be so stupid and accept these returns (I know that life insurers and money market funds have to invest in AAA and so are forced to buy, but in my view, these interest rates are ridiculous.)
Bundesbank toppt Wachstumsprognose der Regierung
https://de.reuters.com/article/economicsNews/idDEBEE6B20AR20101203
“f you read the article it isn’t REALLY clear that contagion has reached Germany but still it has to happen eventually.”
https://twitter.com/#!/edwardnh/statuses/12582804319633408