quantitative easing

Since the financial crisis hit in 2008, excess reserves have piled up in the U.S. financial system. There were almost no excess reserves in the system during the period of recorded data from 1959 onwards. But after the post-Lehman…

By Claus Vistesen Events in Japan and Libya do not seem to have derailed the ongoing positive sentiment in the market. But they just might have alerted various Masters of the Universe that black holes (or was that swans?) are both…

If there is a single factor that was the main driver of US dollar in the first quarter, it would be the divergence between the trajectory of US and European monetary policy. The Federal Reserve is still engaged in easing monetary policy…

Here is a good 17-minute Bloomberg video with Marc Faber. He talks a lot about Mexico and he is bullish on that economy. As for the US, his view, like mine, is that printing money does give a temporary boost to economic activity. However,…

M1 is the narrowest definition of money. It includes currency and coins, traveller's checks, and checking accounts (so-called demand deposits).  The chart below from the St. Louis Fed shows the relationship between base money that the…

Short-Run Actions Have Consequences In the spring of 2003 there was worldwide concern that the U.S. economy was falling into a “Japanese-like” malaise; the recovery was stalling, deflation was likely to occur and unemployment was…

By Marc Chandler Many market observers seem to be exaggerating the role of some Federal Reserve officials, in particular James Bullard, who has mentioned exiting from QE2 before completing the $60 bln of purchases. Plosser, a voting…

The Fed could announce a federal funds target of 3% but the tsunami of excess reserves now out there swamps any conceivable demand, so the federal funds rate would be guaranteed to remain stuck at zero. The target would be meaningless.…

By L. Randall Wray Washington's deficit hysteria has morphed into gridlock over expansion of federal government debt limits. It is as if that stupid “debt clock” on Times Square had run out of electrons to keep the numbers racing ever…

By John Mauldin Loose Monetary Policies and Emerging Markets So far we have focused on the United States and other mature, developed economies that have far too much debt. With Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and…