2018

I want to start today's daily with the markets and the real economy before I branch out into more political economy including Germany. European economic numbers And since I mentioned Germany, let me start there. A slew of economic data came…

I had an epiphany of sorts this morning and I wanted to run the insight by you. Here's what I decided: just maybe the Internet is responsible for a lot of the increasing polarization we see online. Here's how I came to that conclusion.…

So I reckon I've got the politics out of the way now since I don't have a lot to add on the election in Brazil. So here's my daily post without the politics. Climate change I saw a great piece in Axios about climate change that I wanted to…

I've written my initial reaction to the news out of Germany that Angela Merkel is stepping down at the end of her terms as party chairwoman and Chancellor. Hit up this link for that story. It's on nationalism filling the void. And so that…

What to make of the Hesse election I have a wide assortment of political economy stories to present today. I can't pack them all into one newsletter. So I am going to break out a few into separate posts. I want to start with the news out…

Flight to liquidity reminiscent of January and February As the equities market sells off, it's worth noting how much the sovereign bond market is rallying at the same time. I am seeing the 10-year US Treasury bond quoted at 3.079%, well…

Some thoughts on the recent market selloff As I write these words, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up nearly 400 points, about 1.85%. The Nasdaq is up even more. Does that mean the market rout is over? No. But, for me, it does suggest a…

Did I ever mention that the South China Morning Post is one of my favorite reads? You're going to see a lot of articles from it into today's daily post because it is a great source for information about China. And today, it had a few tech…

What is nationalism? I think that's a pretty basic question. And it has a fairly straightforward answer. But, in the wild, out on the campaign trail, it's less straightforward. For example, I often see references to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as…

As the Dow Jones Industrial Average flirts with a 500 point decline, it's worth mentioning the flight to safety going on in the global bond markets. We are seeing major moves into sovereign bonds across currency areas. That has the US…