Credit Writedowns

This is going to be a quick follow-on to the last post on monetary policy as the only game in town. I feel like the obvious question that post doesn’t answer is this one: what other policy tools we should use? And I want to tee up that…

I see that Dartmouth economics professor Danny Blanchflower is talking about slack in the US labour market because he believes the Fed is premature in assessing its full employment mandate as fulfilled. I have a few thoughts on this issue I…

I don't know if there is a German housing bubble or even whether there will be one. I do know that we hear a lot about it in the press - the result of zero, even negative, interest rates. So let me give you a little anecdote from my trip to…

The Fed should not use rate policy to deal with financial stability concerns. The Fed should concentrate rate policy on its dual mandate and that’s it. Instead the Fed should use non-rate mechanisms to exert regulatory control. The worst…

In the aftermath of the shale oil bust that sent the US economy to stall speed in 2015, growth has rebounded, but only to a sort of 2%ish level. Continued low inflation insures further low nominal GDP growth aka secular stagnation. But so…

Quick hit here. I have been banging on about lowflation, repeatedly suggesting it is here to stay. The Fed, on the other hand begs to differ and is pre-emptively normalizing rates, as a result. No matter how you look at this, there’s a…

When you look at how markets are positioned, it’s clear that a lot of people see continued low growth for years to come – a veritable Japanification of the US economy. I hope this is one of those times that markets are wrong. But I am not…

A pause is being considered at the Fed, even by hawkish FOMC members. The oil price crash now gathering steam makes this pause more likely. Maybe Bullard’s infamous low dot on the Fed’s Summary of Economic Projections is the right way to…

Recent statements by monetary authorities in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom tells us rate hikes are possible in all three this year. This trio of English-speaking G7 nations is at a different phase of the monetary policy…

Only during the Great Recession did nominal GDP break out of a tight range – and then, it did so to the downside. We are nowhere near the top of the range now, nor should we expect to be anytime soon.