2019

I haven't written about Brexit in months now, largely because it has become so unpredictable that I have had nothing to say. After we saw the delay that I predicted in December, the whole affair has just had too many moving parts to know…

Real quick here on Europe as I promised yesterday to add some thoughts on Germany after my trip to Cologne US base rates are too high Take a look at this chart from Bianco Research. Jim Bianco describes this as showing the US having the…

I was in Cologne and London last week, two places I know quite well. And as I went out, my trip down memory lane was greeted by the eternal progress of human endeavour. Whether riding the frequently behind schedule Deutsche Bahn by the…

I am back from my beach vacation. So, let me outline what my thinking is after a period of reflection and how it has changed or stayed the same. I last posted more than a week ago right before I left, regarding my frustration about…

I am going to argue here that monetary policy is both less effective than fiscal policy, and that over-reliance on it unnecessarily politicizes monetary policy by putting unelected officials in too prominent an economic role. I would argue…

Sorry for the alarmist post title. But the Fed has completely bottled it. I've been warning for some time that it could go this way. And now, we are in in the endgame. First, the Fed overtightened through 2018. Then, forced at gunpoint by…

Back at the end of July, I was talking about my macro thesis. And I led off writing this: The US is the laggard in this slowing but is affected as well. From a markets perspective, that means a convergence to zero, with yield curves…

The US is the cleanest shirt Last week, I was talking to Megan Greene, the former chief economist at John Hancock for an interview on the US and European economies. And she said something that resonated with me about the global growth…

Yesterday, the overarching message of my post was this bit: "as we think of potential outcomes, policy error has to be a real concern here, especially in 2020 once the cumulative impact of all this takes its full measure." I don't think the…

The big story today is the potential for a currency war, emanating from the escalating trade war between the US and China. But there's a considerable degree of data flow that I want to parse to give a more complete macro view. Having…