interest rates

The following is an excerpt of an article written for the Dallas Fed this month by William R. White, a well-known Canadian economist who served as Chief Economist for the Bank of International Settlements until 2008 and was also one of the…

A few hours ago I wrote a rather downbeat post on the prospects for the US economy that continued the thoughts from an article I wrote in the New York Times. A number of other sources have confirmed some of the logic behind that post since…

One thing Austrians harp on is the misallocation of resources caused by heavy handed and persistent interest rate market intervention. They are right that the industrial organization and the structure of investment capital priorities is…

A key negative side effect of persistently low rates on households is the delay of retirement. This inability of many Americans to retire on their savings because of low rates is keeping them in the workforce, limiting job opportunities for…

Robert Shiller sees telltale signs of new bubbles forming in some of the former bubble markets. He mentions Phoenix and San Francisco as two notables.

Two years ago I developed a thesis about the negative effect of the Federal Reserve's interest rate policies on bank balance sheets based on my understanding about the history of zero rates in Japan. For bank bond investors, this should be…

For most market watchers, it shouldn't be a surprise that easy money has an (intended) effect on markets in increasing risk appetite as 'risk-free' returns diminish. This cycle is no different. A number of today's articles point to a…

The economy remains in solid shape, with exports, IP, retail sales all holding up well despite the sharper US slowdown. GDP rose 4.6% y/y in Q1, and is tracking at a similar rate for Q2. Manufacturing PMI rose to 55.7 in June from 54.3 in…

Whatever can be said for and against Barclays and Bob Diamond, the story is in danger of exhausting itself at the wrong link in the chain. It has sidelined BubbleTV's around-the-clock coverage of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg's dog walker has…

People’s Bank of China today cut the 1-year lending rate by 31 bp to 6% and the 1-year deposit rate by 25 bp to 3%. It also widened the allowable discount that commercial banks can offer on loans from 20% to 30%. This gives the PBOC rate…