fiscal

Note: this daily will not have links as I am still on holiday. But, I will begin to post more in the coming week and resume a normal posting schedule next week. Yesterday, Moody's Investors Service finally downgraded the sovereign credit…

Just a quick note here - I was on Capital Account last night talking about what I expect to happen politically next year. I spelled out some of it in my last post on the US election and the Fiscal Cliff. But here is a more complete view…

The election is now over and it's time to think about what is to come. The most pressing political concern is the so-called fiscal cliff that has resulted from a budget deal Washington's politicians cobbled together to avoid default during…

As I wrote yesterday, government deficits are the biggest driver of elevated corporate margins. This is significant in the US given the looming fiscal cliff and the already ongoing margin mean reversion. Using the financial sectoral…

I think it goes without saying for those of you who have been using the sectoral balances approach, government deficits are what have been driving corporate profits in the U.S. to record levels. Most analysts and news outlets focus on the…

There has been a bit of talk about jobless claims since the abnormally large fall in claims two weeks ago. Those numbers were skewed by reporting anomalies that were adjusted in the subsequent week. Looking beyond the week to week data,…

The theme I highlighted in the daily post on Friday seems to be everywhere today, namely the United States of Europe and Britain's inability to go along with such a concept. Angela Merkel keeps telling us she wants "more Europe". And of…

Early today, I wrote a fairly upbeat piece on the European sovereign debt crisis for gold members. The overall gist here is that fiscal union is now coming. And while it remains to be seen who will be a part of that union, the implication…

This is probably one of the most upbeat posts I have written on Europe in quite a while. Originally, I intended to write this post as a short blurb discussing Angela Merkel's recent European proposals but there are a few loose threads I…

I was on BNN's headline yesterday (video here) talking to Howard Green and Brian Milner about the IMF and China. Fed Chairman Bernanke's defense of QE and zero rates was a big piece of that conversation. I believe Bernanke's defense is…