Political Economy

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was on Charlie Rose the day before yesterday explaining his position on alleged "currency manipulation" by the Chinese. This quote stands out as defining his position: What’s happening is, as…

Earlier this week I had a debate on TV with a local economist on the subject of trade relations. We had the same debate about six and twelve months ago and in each case while I argued that the trade problems were almost intractable and…

The U.S. Senate will pass legislation geared to pressuring China to revalue its currency and the US is set to label China a currency manipulator. The view in Washington ahead of the mid-terms is that China is "the bad guy" as Paul…

In regards to Paul Krugman's argument's on China in the video in the last post, I think this quote from David Rosenberg's latest daily market commentary is spot on: Since 1985, dollar-yen has sunk nearly 70% and yet the US has the…

The interesting thing about this clip is that Paul Krugman is probably right: you need trillions of printed dollars to get the stimulative effect the Federal Reserve is looking for. Ambrose Evans Pritchard was talking about taking the Fed's…

...And the Coming Capital Controls A cross-post from this past Monday by Michael Hudson, President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of…

From Win Thin FOMC minutes from September 21 meeting was surprisingly dovish.  FOMC members thought that additional accommodation may be “appropriate before long” and seemed to lower the bar for further action.  During his…

by Annaly Capital Management In recent weeks, the Plaza Accord has been receiving a lot of attention, particularly after the IMF’s annual meeting in Washington concluded without making any progress on currency issues. If you recall, the…

"Global imbalances are a shared responsibility. The world is dead wrong to blame it on China." That's how Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach began his interview with CNBC Asia. I agree 100% with these sentiments as I discussed in…

This is a quote from a speech Federal Reserve Board Vice Chair Janet Yellen gave yesterday at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for Business Economics in Denver, Colorado (emphasis added): I noted previously--and it is now…