inflation

In yesterday's post, the question was this: how bad do inflationary impulses have to get - even if they're just transitory - to matter? The Fed is telling you they have to get pretty bad for it to react. And with US Treasury bond yields sat…

Before I get into the markets, let me point out two nice data points released this morning. The data The first is Q3 GDP for the US, which came in at 33.1% on an annualized basis and ahead of expectations for 31.0%. That's 7.4% growth in…

I haven't been teeing up thought pieces on the financial system on Credit Writedowns for a while now. And that's a shame since this site's name owes to the role I believe balance sheets in the financial system play in business cycles. So,…

I had two related tweetstorms this morning whose logic I want to flesh out a bit with you. They relate to the existing macro policy world we live in and how that affects outcomes. The long and short is that the outcomes are sub-optimal and…

My view for the last several weeks is that September and October is where the rubber hits the road for the US economy. By that time, the second spike in coronavirus cases will have diminished and we will get a more realistic forward-looking…

Earlier this morning I tweeted an old blog post I wrote two years ago because I think it's relevant to what's happening in the economy right now. And so, I want to use this post to explain what that old post was about, and how that old post…

It's been a while since I had a public post on Credit Writedowns. So I thought now would be a good time to post given Wednesday's Fed rate decision and presser and today's jobs report. I think this one-two punch is a big deal. And that's…

The US Personal Income and Outlays report for June 2019 came out this morning. It showed personal income increasing 0.4% and wages and salaries increasing 0.5% last month. These are good numbers. And in conjunction with a lot of other data…

It's news Friday time. Like last week, I want to switch things up a bit and focus on the news. I am going to present a news story. And then I am going to expand on it, riffing off it and giving you 'my take' on the story. Hopefully, this…

Last week, WTI for November delivery passed the $76 a barrel mark. And since September, speculation has been rife that oil could top $100 a barrel in due course. If oil prices do continue to rise, that's going to have very different effects…