2013

We speak of the case in which positive shocks are self-reinforcing, as a virtuous circle, and the case in which negative shocks are self-reinforcing as a vicious circle, but the important point is that these processes are part of the same…

There is an experiment being conducted in Japan, but the experiment isn’t Abenomics (which I suspect won’t work, and could end very badly). No, the experiment is about learning to grow old with dignity, not as individuals, but as societies.

Gartner's latest market share results are in and they show Google's Android operating system gaining significant market share in Q1 2013 to nearly 75%. That is a jump of almost 20% in just one year.

News links for 14 May 2013

The mobile emphasis is insidious because I almost don't notice that mobile is an angle n nearly every story I see. And when I write mobile, I don't mean smartphones - or 'handheld computers - as Newt Gingrich calls them in the hilarious…

News links for 13 May 2013

I am not a fan of quantitative easing or zero rates. I think that is clear from my posts over the past 4 years. Nevertheless, I do like to link out to posts that put QE and zero rates in a more favourable light because we need to get a…

Retail savers in the US are abandoning certificates of deposits (CDs). The amount of CDs outstanding that are $100K or smaller has been on a sharp decline since the recession and is now at the lowest level since the Fed began keeping track…

As Merrill's junk bond index yield crossed the historical low of 5% on Thursday, some senior Fed officials are clearly becoming uneasy. Corporate credit markets are entering bubble territory (see discussion) and up until recently very…

This is just a quick follow-up to the last post on debt deflationary dynamics in Europe and the contrast to policy in Japan. I think Yanis Varoufakis has it right that Europe is on the same path as Japan but just not as far along the path.…