Credit Writedowns

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…

Nouriel Roubini and Ian Bremmer were on “Bloomberg Surveillance” this morning talking about the economy and the upcoming election in the U.S. A partial transcript and video are below.  The headline story is that Nouriel believes that too…

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…

The first article here highlights the tenor of recent economic data. The global economy continues to slow, with the US doing relatively better than Europe in the wake of the financial crisis that began five years ago. Nevertheless, slowing…

Here's my lead story: Android has caught up to, and in some cases, surpassed iOS. I'll give this a personal twist. I own three Android phones and have another loaned out to my nephew. I also own two Android tablets, one Xoom and one Kindle…

In March, I wrote you about my concerns about Apple's ability to maintain growth expectations without margin slippage. My view was then and still is today that Apple faces a choice of maintaining either margins or growth in both handsets…

Editor's note: the following is the text of a speech given by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke at the Economic Club of Indiana earlier today. Five Questions about the Federal Reserve and Monetary Policy Good afternoon. I am…

This is the first of a few daily links posts. Here I want to concentrate on the economy in light of the manufacturing data released earlier today. I was on BNN today for the headline show at 12:30 and I said pretty much the same thing I…

Now, we come to the Spanish budget. The austerity here is a lot more real than it is in the French budget. As I have been saying for a number of weeks, the goal of the Spanish government is to present an austerity budget that gets approval…

I am going to use two news sources here, Liberation and L'Expansion to dissect the proposed 2013 French budget, which was released earlier today. France is significant because, along with Germany, it represented the pre-crisis axis around…