inflation

So QE cannot possibly offset the effects of fiscal tightening in the lives of ordinary working people - the largest part of the population. In fact because it seems to discourage productive corporate investment, it may even reinforce…

Last year, we saw a sea change in official German policy regarding the euro crisis and inflation. The German government came out in favour of accepting higher inflation domestically in Germany as a sacrifice for eurozone wage and price…

Now, you may well deduct from all of this that I am as bearish as I have ever been, but nothing could be further from the truth. The issues I have discussed in this month’s letter are clouds on the horizon which are likely to take years to…

I see that Paul Krugman has shifted his rhetoric in a recent post on British government economic policy. Let me explain how in this post so that I can make a point as to how bond market vigilantes actually work.

Japan is stuck in a shrinking population trap, and neither monetary nor fiscal policy will adequately solve the problem. Continuing to run fiscal deficits in a deflationary environment will only means that government debt is pushed onward…

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…

Finally, a prominent “mainstreamer” Keynesian gets MMT. Over the past couple of years, Paul Krugman has got close, but he keeps claiming that MMT believes “deficits don’t matter”. He refuses to cite any MMTer who has ever said such a silly…

I mentioned Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen's speech in the last post. I tend to like the way she phrases things because her statements are the clearest of all of the major FOMC policy makers. This speech is in that vein. If I could summarize…

Long-term interest rates are a series of future short-term rates. That necessarily means that an interest-rate targetting central bank exerts the dominant influence not just on the short end in its currency area, but across the yield curve.…

I’ll be watching a number of things in 2013 in order to get a better sense of what the future will bring. On January 22 Princeton University Press will be publishing my book, The Great Rebalancing: Trade, Conflict, and the Perilous Road…