Monetary System

Spiegel, a widely-read German magazine, has published a trilogy of articles on inflation in German that it has also translated into English. The theme is “How Monetary Policy Threatens Savings” and I see this as a must-read for those…

The banks are slowly admitting losses, but Bloomberg's summary is of a slow recognition. Even so, writedowns have left the banks stranded: unable to make loans. Up until now, it appears, the banks and the government were able to carry the…

By Andrew G Haldane, Executive Director, Financial Stability, Bank of England There is a long list of culprits when it comes to assigning blame for the financial crisis. This column argues economists are among the guilty, having succumbed…

Note: this post has been changed to state that my analysis assumes that negative real rates are indicative of a loose monetary policy. When it comes to the efficacy of Fed policy, there are a number of people you have to read. I like…

The global economy has been slowing for nearly a year now, both in developed economies and in emerging markets. Things were already weak before this global growth slowdown began. It almost seems like we have been in a permanent state of…

By Paul De Grauwe, Professor of international economics, London School of Economics, and former member of the Belgian parliament and Yuemei Ji, Economist, LICOS, University of Leuven This post was first published at VoxEU Germany’s large…

Editor's note: The FDIC released the following press release today in conjunction with findings by the FDIC's Committee on Economic Inclusion to Discuss Strategies to Expand Access. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) today…

I recently wrote two member posts on the NPL problem in Europe. The source is a study by PwC's Frankfurt office that was released to the German-language media. Frankly, this report is everywhere in the German media and I think it's a big…

In May I wrote a post asking "Why can’t people understand national accounting?" and I was heartened that the post seemed to get a lot of traction. Most people don't get it. In fact, I didn't get it until a few years ago. Here's a chart…

Here's a good video from the Tech Ticker guys showing us that the opaque nature of asset-backed securities is catching up with Wall Street again. This is now becoming a problem in the credit card industry.