fiscal

European shares are rebounding after a two-day decline; dollar is mostly higher in G10. Italian politics remains front and center ahead of budget vote; UK outlook remains sluggish. With US calendar light, markets likely to focus on Fed…

Assuming that the Greek and Italian political situation stabilize, the focus may shift back to the Iberia. The risk is that the new Spanish government will report a larger budget deficit and weaker finances in general than the outgoing…

If a central bank guarantees investors credibly that they can invest in certain debt instruments and not suffer principal or interest repayment risk, but only currency and inflation risk, some investors are almost definitely going to buy…

This post is intended to be a hopefully brief synopsis of how the monetary system works using an Austrian framing with MMT terminology. If you don’t know what that means, you’ll see what I mean as I proceed. MMTers like to say that money…

Last week we showed that government deficits lead to an equivalent amount of nongovernment savings. The nongovernment savings created will be held in claims on government. Normally, the nongovernment sector prefers to hold that much of that…

I was just looking at Barry Ritholtz’s synopsis of Felix Zulauf’s observations from an in-office interview Barry had with him and I have to say I agree with the man 100%. But is the die cast? Are we headed into something much worse?

Italy argues that the ECB has made the crisis worse because it refuses to stand at the ready as a lender of last resort like other central banks, an argument I have also made. However, the Italians suggest that the EU is facing a liquidity…

Recipients of government spending can hold receipts in the form of a bank deposit, can withdraw cash, or can use the deposit to spend on goods, services, or assets. In the first case, no further portfolio effects occur. In the second case,…

Below is the leaked Greek bailout document that everyone has been talking about. Yesterday, the Financial Times first revealed this analysis' existence. Here is Rob Parenteau's understanding of what the Troika analysis demonstrates about…

Each time the treasury spends or taxes, a complex series of steps is required that involve the treasury, the central bank and private banks. The central bank and the treasury develop such procedures to ensure that government is able to…