monetary policy

In the links today, the biggest threads outside of the NSA scandal were on Greece and Europe. I believe the economy there is bottoming and I want to discuss some of the news flow. There was also a rate decision by the Japanese central bank…

Daily comments on finance, economic and market news for 6 Jun 2013

Australia's central bank left rates on hold yesterday as was generally expected. The RBA continues to be quite hawkish as well as relatively optimistic on the nation's economy. Given the "cash rate" is at historical lows at 2.75%, the board…

While the recent data have pushed the Fed's QE withdrawal timetable out, the latest Fed statements indicate a level of hawkishness on tapering QE that we haven't seen in the last few weeks. This jobs report is shaping up to be a key data…

One of the most contentious topics in America is the impact of the Federal Reserve’s policy of “Quantitative Easing” – otherwise known as ‘QE’. The Federal Reserve has committed to spending $85 billion every month buying a wide range of…

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…

Yesterday, Ben Bernanke said that the Fed would start to wind down it's QE program sometime this summer as I indicated early last week I believed the timetable would be. Market pundits believe these remarks triggered a sell-off in global…

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…

There is an experiment being conducted in Japan, but the experiment isn’t Abenomics (which I suspect won’t work, and could end very badly). No, the experiment is about learning to grow old with dignity, not as individuals, but as societies.

I am not a fan of quantitative easing or zero rates. I think that is clear from my posts over the past 4 years. Nevertheless, I do like to link out to posts that put QE and zero rates in a more favourable light because we need to get a…