monetary policy

Leverage is the practice of holding a small amount of government currency in reserve against IOUs denominated in the state’s unit of account while promising to convert those IOUs to currency. This can lead to a “run” on private IOUs,…

Dollar continues to firm amid choppy market conditions; US futures point to modest decline. President Obama announces bigger package than expected; fiscal stimulus may be USD supportive. China’s CPI report shows that inflation has likely…

BoE holds steady, with markets awaiting the ECB press conference; European stocks firmer. Important speeches from Bernanke and Obama; Bernanke likely to signal potential measures. Brazil swaps and futures market pricing in significant rate…

In the Asian EM space, central banks from Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and South Korea all meet this Thursday. We don’t see any change from these four central banks and in general we believe EM central banks have moved into dovish…

Just where are all those borrowers who are willing and able to borrow the $2 trillion or $20 trillion that hyperventilators believe banks want to lend? The US private sector (firms and households) have instead ramped up their net…

This is excerpted from the American Presidency Project at UCSB. Hoover writes the following letter to George L. Harrison, Federal Reserve Board of New York, on financial and economic problems on 5 Oct 1931

David Rosenberg was on Bloomberg and sees operation twist. But he also says he doesn't see how the Fed could prevent a US recession. His view is that the recession is already baked in. He goes further and says that Ben Bernanke is ‘always…

The jobs numbers in the US were weak. There was no change in non-farm payrolls. Unemployment was unchanged from July at 9.1%. Underemployment was 16.2%. Total revisions to previous months’ data were –58,000, meaning the number today was…

While most EM central banks have moved into dovish wait-and-see stances, very few have cut rates during this cycle. Besides Brazil, only Turkey has this distinction and we’ve seen markets punish the lira in recent weeks. While the…