Economy

By Annaly Capital Management Senator Rand Paul is on the tape promising to unveil a budget with $500 billion in expense cuts in one year, and that he will not spare any government program or agency from his scythe, including the Defense…

Harold Meyerson, in The Washington Post, says debate about whether the recession and poor recovery are cyclical or structural problems is misplaced. Meyerson says the problems are institutional imbalances.

This is what the biggest mall in the world looks like on a typical Saturday, very reminiscent of this Hugh Hendry video of China's empty skyscrapers and this video of China's empty city.

CNBC has a lot of good guests on this week. Here's another clip from earlier today. This time it's Stephen Roach talking about asymmetric monetary policy and financial bubbles. Roach believes the Fed needs to entirely rethink its policy…

Jamie Dimon's 17-minute interview by Maria Bartiromo below was done earlier in the week before JPMorgan Chase released their numbers. The numbers were good, showing quarterly profits of $4.8 billion or $1.12 a share. Dimon expects to resume…

By Edward Hugh “If you know your Thucydides and the Melian dialogue you know that small countries rely most on everyone following the rules. That’s why we follow the rules. If there are no rules, then the big will do what they want,”…

Gary Shilling spoke with Bloomberg's Tom Keene yesterday in a wide-ranging interview. I have posted the video below for you to watch. But let me say a few words about the interview. First, it is noteworthy that in this multi-faceted…

by Edward Harrison Brent Crude is still trading above $98 a barrel. And agricultural commodities remain at extremely elevated levels. World food prices are at all-time highs. The worry is inflation in consumer prices that is not matched by…

Actually I hadn't intended to write this post but this week and last week I have seen a few comments on Twitter questioning the government's employment numbers. That made me think it's a good time to review the US Government's seasonal…

This from today's Fed Beige Book survey: Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts suggest that economic activity continued to expand moderately from November through December. Conditions were said to be improving in the Boston,…