deflation

This video from the 1930s is a timeless piece of work, giving an explanation of what inflation and deflation are and how they work. (hat tip Tim Iacono)

I recently wrote a post about U.S. Treasury securities which have been rising in price as interest rates have come down. In the post, I called the Treasury rise a bubble and I stick by that moniker despite protests from some astute readers.…

I am certainly of the view that a considerable worsening of the recession is baked in the cake for 2009. But will fiscal and monetary stimulus prevent worst case scenarios? I certainly hope so, as I have laid out in recent posts. But,…

Caroline Baum had a good column today at Bloomberg in which she suggests central banks consider asset prices in monetary policy going forward. In the piece she quoted William White, a former economist from the Bank for International…

First the Fed and now the ECB and Bank of England are talking about some form of quantitative easing! Of course, if they are all going to do it, do we have a dollar crash or is it more of a crisis of confidence in fiat currencies in…

As interest rates in the developed economies approach the zero bound, we must begin to ask ourselves how effective monetary policy can reasonably be in these circumstances. And if policy is to be effective, which policy tools will be most…

In economic circles, there has been a lot of buzz about Quantitative Easing of late. Basically, the U.S. Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates to near zero percent and the fear is that these cuts will not have enough effect on the…

Consumer prices came down more than expected with the CPI (Consumer Price Index) falling 1.0% month-to-month. This s a large decline, but is entirely related to fall in the price of oil. Underlying core CPI excluding food and energy, down…

The headline story is that this is the largest month-to-month fall ever since monthly statistics began for this data series in 1947. But, as you can see from the chart below, all of this decline was due to food and energy. Therefore, the…

The Bank of England has cut interest rates to 3%, a 1 1/2 point cut. Just weeks ago, the BoE Governor Mervyn King was writing to the Government explaining how they had let inflation run out of control. However, with the economy tanking,…