Economy

By Michael Pettis Debate about the global savings glut hypothesis is mired in confusion, a fundamental one of which is the seemingly obvious but false claim that a global savings glut must lead to higher global savings. Here, for example,…

Jobless claims: a good coincident indicator of the US economy. If you look at changes in jobless claims it can also help you call turning points in the economy. I have done claims graphs a few times over the past six years but I haven’t…

Since 2007, the global economy has been in a near permanent sate of semi-crisis. Forget about Jamie Dimon’s quip to his daughter that a crisis is something that occurs every five years. Start thinking of the global economy as being in a…

I have been off since Thursday due to the Easter holiday. But I want to write my traditional Friday post today with a grab bag of different issues I am seeing. I actually just want to focus on the US this time.

Sober Look's received a number of e-mails regarding the recent post on the possibility that rising CAPEX spending in the US is driving corporations to tap their credit facilities, thus increasing loan growth. Most were highly critical of…

Through the lens of someone looking at economies with rapidly ageing populations we can simply say that this problem arises because there isn't any consumption to pull forward! Fisher's interest theory was always valid, it is merely that in…

The US dollar is consolidating yesterday's gains that were scored largely in response to Draghi's revelation that QE and a negative deposit rate were discussed at the ECB meeting. The consensus expects that the US economy grew 200k jobs…

We are seeing signs of significant improvements in US labor markets. The ADP report today was certainly an indication of recovery from the winter slowdown. One area to watch in the ADP report is construction, as construction payrolls have…

This isn’t a theme post. It is more like the posts I now do on Friday with a bunch of different ideas on important topics. But the underlying theme that interconnects the ideas is a deflationary-style slowdown. First, in Europe, the CPI is…

Private loan balances in the euro area continue to decline. Last month's drop of 2.2% from the previous year was worse than had been expected by economists.