2011

US dollar remains firm across on the board as risk-off dominates. FOMC meeting unlikely to surprise and Empire manufacturing should remain firm, while German Zew confidence dropped to 14.1, below expectations. Growth-sensitive currencies…

Our hearts go out to the Japanese because of the human tragedy that resulted from a devastating earthquake and tidal wave. I want to echo Dr. El-Erian's sentiments here. It will difficult and it will have globe-spanning consequences, but…

The pension costs of states and municipalities in years hence are often stated in a calculation of future liabilities. For instance, the future obligations of state and municipal pension funds are calculated (in frequently cited studies) at…

European officials have reached an agreement in principle that falls well shy of the “comprehensive plan” officials had promised and is unlikely to provide investors with a sense of closure to the debt crisis that began in late 2009. Yet…

Last Wednesday, BNN's Howard Green spoke to Rob Cox of Reuters and me about two issues: the monster rally from March 2009 and the ongoing European debt crisis. On the markets, yes, I foresaw a rally two years ago because stock prices…

Oil spills, coal mining disasters, concerns over Middle East revolutions and now nuclear meltdowns. What do all these events have in common? As I have written earlier, they are energy-related. They all have to do with desperate efforts to…

The essential idea is that the “money supply” in an “entrepreneurial economy” is demand-determined – as the demand for credit expands so does the money supply. As credit is repaid the money supply shrinks. These flows are going on all the…

By Michael Pettis Barry Eichengreen had a very interesting piece in last week’s Wall Street Journal. In it he argues that we are approaching the end of the period in which the US dollar is the world’s dominant reserve currency, and…

By Win Thin Malaysia central bank surprised the markets by hiking the statutory reserve requirement 100 bp bp while leaving policy rates unchanged at 2.75%. The bank noted that “While the stance of monetary policy is expected to remain…

If you want an accurate explanation of quantitative easing, here it is. I am going to describe the basic mechanics and the transmission mechanism to the rest of the economy. To the degree there is official documentation on the mechanics, I…