Credit Writedowns

Today the Wall Street Journal is reporting that German industrial output for the 4th quarter of 2012 likely fell below the output for the 3rd quarter, making it possible that Germany could lapse into recession.

My position since October 2009 has been that the United States could not hold off deficit hawks for more than three or four years. 2013 is the deadline for that prediction to be fulfilled and we are right on schedule with the fiscal cliff…

North America Consumers Take on More Debt - Real Time Economics - WSJ "U.S. consumers’ overall borrowing expanded in November at a quicker pace than the previous month, led by bank loans and student borrowing.The total outstanding dollar…

The unemployment rate in the euro zone hit 11.8% in November according to the numbers released by the EU this morning. That is a record. The EU-27-wide unemployment rate was 10.7%. This contrasts very unfavourably to the unemployment levels…

Australian property market is seeing transaction volume fall. Preliminary Melbourne sales data for 2012 from the Real Estate Institute of Victoria says that 69,000 home sales were registered last year. While that is a fall of only 3,000…

I just wanted to follow up on Randy Wray's last post to look at this Trillion Dollar Coin idea from an investing perspective. I believe the coin would be bullish for Treasuries because it lowers average Treasury duration and alters private…

The Platinum coin has been all over the blogosphere as well as the media. Some have been arguing it will cause hyperinflation. How can issuing a coin to be held at the Fed to allow the Treasury to spend up to budgeted amount lead to…

A good article in the Spanish-language Actibva reviews what to expect from the Spanish government regarding debt and deficits in 2013. I can't speak to the predictive ability here but the article is good at a minimum for its highlighting of…

The rise of nationalism does not bode well for Japan's participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an attempt to build a free-trade area covering both sides of the Pacific. Although it was somewhat controversial for the DPJ, it had…

I have heard a lot of doomsday predictions regarding Japan over the last twenty years. None of them have panned out as yet. This year, we are hearing a lot more as a result of the Japanese Central Bank's intention of 'monetizing' the…