financial repression

Is the fiscal debate political or market-driven? The eponymous debate in the US over government spending, debt and deficits is whether the issues are fundamentally market-driven or politically-motivated. For example, recently Trump economic…

As low nominal GDP growth takes hold, we should expect short-term interest rates to remain low and for the yield curve to flatten. There are three main reasons this is so. First, low nominal growth rates imply low inflation. Second, to the…

Market based information is telling us that spreads and leverage are now disconnected, fundamentals remain in-line with theory. Companies with higher net debt also have poorer liquidity positions.

This is a loaded topic. This entry, however, is not intended to be political. Very few things in economics are good or bad in themselves, but rather can be good under certain conditions or bad under others. I want to try to tease out as…

My contention has been that the first two arrows of Abenomics gave the Japanese economy a short window to bring the Japanese labour market back to full employment, re-ignite wage gains, and institute structural reforms. In my view, Abe has…

In order to understand much of what is happening in China it is important to understand how financial systems operate under condition of financial repression. Because most of what we know about economics is derived from economists whose…

This column argues that the legacy of public debt resulting from the crisis in the Eurozone is a serious threat. Both the size of the problem and the options to address it make life much more difficult for policymakers than was the case in…

Gold is breaking down in a big way right now. We are well into bear market territory here. Marc Faber thinks it could fall to $1300... before rebounding. A number of noted goldbugs are talking about a Fed conspiracy. So what is going on…

The seemingly never-ending debate on passive vs. active investment management is beginning to annoy me. The discussion is one-dimensional and, at times, completely derailed. I shall be the first to admit that the long-only industry has not…

Trade data for the US, Germany, Japan and China were released earlier today. While the US, Germany and China had robust export growth that caused their surpluses to swell, Japan's numbers showed weakness despite the recent drop in the value…