Economy

Sandy Weill repudiates his pre-crisis "financial supermarket" legacy in suggesting that banks were too big and too leveraged. He openly advocates re-instituting Glass-Steagall. He also supports mark to market.

The information is as stunning as it is counter-intuitive: federal spending has gone up less under President Obama than any president since Eisenhower.

After 1990 we removed what was left of financial regulations following the flurry of deregulation of the early 1980s that had freed the thrifts so that they could self-destruct. And we are shocked, SHOCKED!, that thieves took over the…

I just wrote a post for Credit Writedowns Pro on the regional government problems in Spain. The following chart from El Pais is useful in that context.

By Sober Look Further evidence of Argentina's crashing economy is now directly visible in the nation's GDP contraction. Reuters: - Argentina's economy contracted in May while industrial production slumped further in June, data…

Warning: This commentary is very DISTURBING - not for the faint of heart. Two days ago, a friend of mine told me via email about a comment on a blog post about whether MBA schools were incubating criminals that was truly disturbing. I…

We first noticed the first signs that the economy was beginning to soften about three months ago. Now the evidence of a slowdown has become so overwhelming that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we are headed for a recession. We…

Germany had a relatively small trade surplus in the early 1990s. But after the euro was formed, the surplus vaulted higher. The clear implication is that Germany's export sector benefitted hugely from the introduction of the euro.

Many orthodox economists ironically adopt something close to a “loan pusher” argument: the excess global saving pushed interest rates down, leading to excessive borrowing by debtor nations that consumed beyond their means. Although the…

The economy remains in solid shape, with exports, IP, retail sales all holding up well despite the sharper US slowdown. GDP rose 4.6% y/y in Q1, and is tracking at a similar rate for Q2. Manufacturing PMI rose to 55.7 in June from 54.3 in…