Economy

In a recent post on the money multiplier, a reader Luis Enrique asked about bank lending and capital constraints. Anecdotally, much of the reduction in credit is supply-constrained as well as demand-constrained. That means it's a matter of…

By Comstock Partners The Fed tried to thread a needle and ended up satisfying nobody. They confirmed to all the doubters that the economy was indeed weak and that they really couldn't do much about it without resorting to completely…

There has been a lot of excited press commentary recently about China’s overtaking Japan as the world’s second largest economy.  China’s GDP should be larger than Japan’s for the first time sometime this year, which in a similar…

By Edward Hugh Look, if there is one simple chart which sums up everything that is wrong with current thinking at the International Monetary Fund, then it is this one. Basically, I spent much of the day yesterday scratching my head,…

By John Mauldin Now let's turn to China. I received this report from Simon Hunt (who is based in London, and who makes my travel schedule look positively pedestrian). Besides being an expert on the copper market he is a serious student of…

No wonder Goldman has resisted derivatives regulation so fiercely. A huge percentage of the firm's revenue comes from these activities (hat tip R.W.). The Wall Street Journal is reporting that as much as a third of the firm's revenue came…

Confidence Has Returned To Europe’s Financial Markets, But Lasting Economic Growth May Not Be So Easy To Achieve ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet was in rather optimistic, one might even say jovial, mood at the press conference which…

Private sector pay roles gained a disappointing 71k and the June figure was revised lower. The headline lost 131k and here too downward revisions in prior months. The work week increased and hourly earnings ticked up. Manufacturing,…

By Comstock Partners We have maintained all along that the statistical economic recovery would lose momentum after the effects of the stimulus and inventory replenishment wore off, and the recent data are confirming our view. Moreover…

By Marin Katusa, Casey’s Energy Opportunities Stop the presses. The United States is no longer the world’s biggest consumer of energy. After topping the energy consumption charts for more than a century, the U.S. has been left behind as…