credit

So why are these big name retailers suing the big banks. It's this chart that appears to be the smoking gun. Credit card interchange fees are the highest by a large margin. Clearly those charges that go into the bank and credit card…

Central Banks, whenever they buy any asset create new reserves. Commercial banks and people do NOT have the capacity to destroy those reserves. Once the Fed or ECB wires the money or creates that asset line item on its spreadsheet, there is…

Late yesterday the US reported the biggest jump in consumer credit in a decade. It reinforces the signal of the gradual healing of the labor market and the resilience of the US consumer. The report increases the risk that the November…

In addition to the European economic recession exerting a drag on the rest of the world, the real threat of bankruptcy of a major financial institution can rapidly spread throughout the globe as a result of a run on the banks or the opaque…

As always, I present you Byron Wien’s Ten Surprises for 2011. He is bullish yet again - on both the US and emerging markets.

I don't expect any response from Paul Krugman, Alex Tabarrok or Tyler Cowen on this but they know who I am and read my articles from time to time. I am going to add my voice to a debate they have been having in the blogosphere on debt,…

Investment advisor John Mauldin explains his attitude towards austerity measures; a return of the gold standard; the euro crisis; and the willingness to bailout everyone that makes capitalism and monetary systems stop working.

It seems to have been none other than Paul Krugman who made it safe for others to adopt MMT. He shined his headlights on the obvious: the reason why interest rates on government debt are not exploding in countries like Japan, the US, and…

Now the bubble is visibly bursting. How much damage will it do to the Chinese economy — and the world? That is our homework assignment over the holiday. Getting it right will determine 2012′s investment and trading returns, in our opinion.…

I don’t think there is a whole lot to say about this week’s numbers beyond what I have been saying for the past several months. Nothing substantial has really changed. China’s external account is worsening, and will continue to worsen…