Willem Buiter

On the financial scene, I see the biggest news as being the fact that the yield on 3-month treasuries have now gone negative. This is an absolute first. This means the U.S. government is being paid by investors to borrow. Given the fact…

Yesterday was a good day in the markets, all in all. However, a number of anomalies still exist which we hope to cover in the coming days. Fist, there has bee an unprecedented rally in U.S. Treasury securities which some are calling a…

As interest rates in the developed economies approach the zero bound, we must begin to ask ourselves how effective monetary policy can reasonably be in these circumstances. And if policy is to be effective, which policy tools will be most…

Willem Buiter has a very useful and provocative blog at the Financial Times website called Mavercon.  The Dutch-born former Bank of England MPC member is not afraid to take policy makers to task or call a spade a spade. In his latest post…

Politics As the time for Barack Obama to take office moves ever closer, his policy team is coming into view. Obama has appointed a slew of economic advisors including Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and Paul Volcker. In addition, he looks to…

Since everyone and his sister can become a bank, why not a central banker cum professor and his wife? Willem Buiter understands the absurdity of granting any financial institution in America bank holding status. He understands this is one…

Just a few moments ago I caught a very interesting post on Alice Cook's site UK Bubble. The gist of the post was that things are falling apart in Ireland very quickly. Given what we saw with Iceland, I have to ask: is Ireland next? I…

Below is a link to an article I wrote about the Bank of England's aggressive 1.5% interest rate cut that appeared in yesterday's Guardian newspaper.The unkindest cut, GuardianThe long and short of it is that I am very skeptical about the…

Did you see that coming? What a train wreck of an end we had yesterday in the States. Things started off well enough with gains in Asian trading. The Europeans were a bit jittier, but it was within the bounds of reason. New York? That…

The Credit Crisis has clearly moved on to Europe, as events there are showing the kind of crisis we have been seeing here.The UK Treasury has broached the possibility that it would buy equity in major British banks. Iceland is on the verge…