asset-based economy

Europe is in recession right now, but the US is in a weak but fairly long-lived economic recovery. The difference in economic fortunes owes entirely to differing policy responses in both regions. In Europe, the economic paradigm has…

Yesterday I said that, given the housing rebound, it seemed ever more likely that the US economy would be able to power through the budget cuts from the sequester and the fiscal cliff. This is the asset-based economy at work. There is…

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…

I am going to be speaking on a panel on "Investing in Inflation" tomorrow. And I thought I would put forward some ideas here regarding what I intend to say. The key word describing where we are is biflation, meaning inflation in some things…

Japan has joined the crowd and started an even more aggressive asset purchase program as the Japanese economy weakens. Meanwhile, serious tax hikes are poised to go into effect very soon. Japan plans to cut state spending because the…

Ray Dalio spoke with Maria Bartiromo at the Council on Foreign Relations this morning about a number of economic and financial topics. Dalio covered a number of topics including deleveraging the euro crisis and alternative investments like…

Here's a good essay from the St. Louis Fed, examining how effective 'permanent zero' rates are. As you know, I think permanent zero is toxic. Let's see what the St. Louis Fed is saying though. Since the late 1980s the Federal Open Market…

Even before the crisis, there were some who stressed that monetary policy should keep an eye on asset bubbles and the growth of credit. This column argues that the policy of inflation targeting, used widely in the 1990s and 2000s, did…

The following is an excerpt of an article written for the Dallas Fed this month by William R. White, a well-known Canadian economist who served as Chief Economist for the Bank of International Settlements until 2008 and was also one of the…

Bill Gross is out with his monthly commentary. Because his points are central to the discussion of policy and markets right now, I am going to write this weekly newsletter commentary outside the paywall. The major question is about how to…