credit cards

On Christmas Eve, the Wall Street Journal had two interesting articles on the credit situation in the U.S., one from the banks' perspective and one from the households' perspective. In general, the data were positive but I believe the…

By Michael Pettis The big news in the past two weeks has been the slew of economic data suggesting that China has firmly turned the corner on its economic closedown. Growth is up, investment is up, and inflation is down. Here, for example,…

After the Great Depression broke out, American economist Irving Fischer championed a view of the financial system now called "endogenous money", which sees each person in the economy as a creator of credit. Viewing the economy through this…

When it comes to the euro zone, most eyes are fixed on Spain and Greece where a debt deflationary death spiral has begun. But the economic situation remains fragile in other countries of the so-called periphery. Italy is the largest…

I haven't done the daily for a few days because I have been trying to get out a few more lengthy posts. But today I wanted to highlight the inflation issue because I will be speaking on a Euromoney panel about investing in inflation later…

I have had a lot of other things on my plate and haven't been able to write as regularly as I would like. But I am going to try to increase the volume of posts by putting out more quick hits like this one that capture my macro view without…

Editor's note: The FDIC released the following press release today in conjunction with findings by the FDIC's Committee on Economic Inclusion to Discuss Strategies to Expand Access. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) today…

A friend tipped me off to this BIS paper from 2009. It looks into unconventional monetary policy and the inflationary consequences of adding a huge amount of reserves to the system. The abstract reads as follows:  Abstract The recent…

Since there is no appetite in Congress to bail out the FHA as its financial condition deteriorates, Fitch believes that the FHA may end up renegotiating its full protection on these mortgages with the banks who hold the loans. The agency…

Since there is no appetite in Congress to bail out the FHA as its financial condition deteriorates, Fitch believes that the FHA may end up renegotiating its full protection on these mortgages with the banks who hold the loans. The agency…