monetary policy

Hugh Hendry is back writing after a long hiatus. His latest commentary to investors makes for good reading. His thesis: we are in a world of debt deflation for which there are no policy remedies; the Fed is fighting an uphill battle and it…

These first posts are on QE. My view is that QE won't work. The fundamentals are negative for a lot more credit growth and the Fed has concentrated on QE quantity instead of QE price i.e. rate. The result, predictably, is that rates are not…

The problem Bernanke is having goes to terminology and the difficulty of explaining a complex monetary system. In 2002 and again last year, Bernanke used 'money' to denote the reserves he is now creating to buy government Treasury…

Yes, I know; there are flaws in this video but still... C'mon, is Bernanke printing money or not? In 2002, he said yes. In 2009, he said yes. Now he says no? My take: it's a lot easier to tell a story if you stick to it. And it's also nice…

by Lars Schall Folker Hellmeyer, chief analyst at Bremer Landesbank, gave an exclusive interview to chaostheorien.de. Yesterday we ran the first part of that interview with his take on the so called “Currency Wars,”China's role as a…

This is a very good debate between Garry Shilling, a prominent deflationista, and Peter Schiff, a prominent inflationista, because it shows you the core substance of the arguments on the inflation-deflation debate. I am calling this one for…

Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many…

The lead post here is from CW contributor John Lounsbury on the seduction of America. He wrote the original version in the Spring of 2009; yet, this piece is as relevant today as it was then – a must read. Then there is Felix Salmon's post…

The thinking behind Eurobonds is that a pan-euro zone debt instrument could be used as a release valve for liquidity issues, allowing the truly insolvent to restructure their state level debt if necessary, without creating contagion. The…

Links on the Fed's Emergency Lending to companies like magnetar and foreign banks of all stripes are featured in today's links. Also here is a good article on structural/cyclical unemployment and one by Thomas Hoenig on too big to fail plus…