Mario Draghi, new ECB boss who completed his monetary apprenticeship at Goldman Sachs, has conjured up a sneaky way to print money while giving the impression he’s doing nothing of the sort.
January 19th, 2012 | Greg Canavan | 1 comment | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "quantitative easing"
The Liquid Assets You Can No Longer Bank On
There are no more risk-free liquid assets in the market. Maybe there never were. But it’s one of those sacred cows that has never been gored before. It is now (gored, in painfully slow fashion). The dirty little secret of the bankrupt Welfare State is out: government bonds are just another liability.
December 13th, 2011 | Dan Denning | 4 comments | Continued
A Loss is Not a Loss if You Turn Debt into Equity
The yoke of debt may have felt light until now. But the lash of higher rates on the back will definitely be noticeable. Let’s just hope it doesn’t break the financial back of a whole generation of home buyers, although this is what we fear “bringing forward demand” will do.
March 24th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 15 comments | Continued
The Investor in Indian Bonds has Ben Bernanke on His Side
Stocks rose again yesterday – largely on the good feelings inspired by Ben Bernanke. The US Fed chief let it be known that if the economy slips back into a slump it won’t be his fault.
March 22nd, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
Have Things Turned the Corner for Funding Aussie Mortgage Growth?
It’s probably too early to say. The Australian Office of Financial Management continues to support the market for non-bank lenders. Non-bank lenders have to fund new loans via securtisation. Without the AOFM’s backing, you have to wonder how many first home buyers would have been able to find housing finance.
December 21st, 2009 | Dan Denning | 25 comments | Continued
Optimists Expect Mild Inflation in a Decent Recovery
Pessimists fear the feds may have waited too long; they think they see higher rates of inflation coming. Here on the back page we see no recovery…nor any inflation.
December 7th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 3 comments | Continued
Chinese Government Expected to Sign Off on Second Stimulus Package
Chinese bank lending and credit growth is already through the roof. Last year’s $685 billion stimulus program sent fixed asset investment in China much higher. It was, by most accounts, hugely supportive of resource prices, and thus most welcome in Australian resource circles.
December 4th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 8 comments | Continued
More Quantitative Easing by Fed has Markets Spooked About Inflation
Bullard said, that, “If the economy came in very weak, let’s say, in 2010, weaker than expected, we would have the option of doing further quantitative easing.” The Fed would do this through additional asset purchases, presumably with more, uh, “money” it created.
November 24th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 43 comments | Continued
Homebuilding Goes Down While Economy Gathers Strength
Meanwhile, the news two days ago was that homebuilding took a dive in October. Work began on 11% fewer houses than the month before.
November 20th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 1 comment | Continued
China Will Rule the Business World While America Finds Itself Heavily in Debt
The 19th century belonged to Britain, the 20th century belonged to America and in the 21st century, China will rule the business world. Whether you like it or not, this transition is already underway…
November 18th, 2009 | Puru Saxena | 10 comments | Continued
U.S. Government Must Roll Over $3.4 Trillion in Debt Over Next Four Years
And if America can’t find anyone willing to finance its deficits, what then? Well, the luxury of issuing debts in the currency you also print is that you can print money to pay for them. Technically, you can never become insolvent when you enjoy this privilege. The Fed, for example, can create new money to buy debt issued by the Treasury, funding deficits ad infinitum.
November 3rd, 2009 | Dan Denning | 5 comments | Continued
Feds See Every Emergency as an Opportunity
So far, the feds are the only real winners from any of these crises. Federal outlays, as a percentage of GDP have shot up from less than 20% of GDP in 2000 to more than 26% in 2009.
October 28th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
Is It Really the End of the Dollar Carry Trade?
But as you’ll learn today, the bankers, the Fed, the media…the whole lot of them…have learned nothing from last year. The hangover was just beginning to set in, so everyone began drinking again heavily. And now the party is wild and out of control. Even the cops are drunk.
October 27th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 4 comments | Continued
A Recovery of Some Kind in Global Trade
“Global trade rose at its fastest rate in more than five years in July,” The Financial Times reports, “suggesting the economic recovery is feeding through into commerce.”
September 30th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 1 comment | Continued
A Deflation in Unit Labor Costs
Since employment is a lagging indicator of economic activity, we learned over the years to dig deeper than the headline figure to get a read on where labor market conditions may be going.
September 10th, 2009 | Rob Parenteau | 0 comments | Continued
