ShareWhy aren’t more municipal bonds being downgraded by the ratings agencies Fitch, Moody’s and S&P?  If you look at sovereign debt in revenue-constrained countries like Greece, Portugal or Ireland, the ratings agencies are issuing warnings. 
But, states and municipalities are suffering from the same revenue constraints. Tax revenues have plunged. Governments have shut down services [...]

ShareThe following is a re-print of the latest monthly newsletter from Niels Jensen of Absolute Return Partners, published with the express permission of the author. Visit www.arpllp.com to learn more about Absolute Return Partners. You can reach the firm by email at info@arpllp.com.
This post on taxes and budget deficits should remind one of three recent [...]

ShareFitch, the credit rating agency, has just downgraded the sovereign debt ratings for the Republic of Ireland from AA+ to AA-.  That is two notches and is proof-positive that the ratings agencies are worried about the hole in Dublin’s finances.
If you read the Irish press this morning, it is all doom and gloom and has [...]

ShareWhen I read Ed’s recent piece “Japan: stimulus without reform leads to a policy cul de sac,” I couldn’t help but think he is wrong about Japan.
Supporting aggregate demand
The problem is taxes. In Japan, taxes are too high relative to the desire for spending and savings. Policy makers need to stop taking so many yen [...]

ShareYesterday, Moody’s cut the outlook for the sovereign debt of Portugal and put Greece on negative watch for a downgrade, signaling growing concern over spiraling debts. Just as with Spain and Ireland which I discussed yesterday, Portugal and Greece are smaller countries within the Eurozone with large fiscal problems due to the recession. For example, [...]

ShareFormer Morgan Stanley economist Andy Xie joins other famed prognosticators like Nouriel Roubini in worrying about an incipient asset bubble. The Rosetta Stone Advisors board member sees the huge increase in money supply created by central banks as fuel to an asset bubble fire. He even goes so far as to call the central banks [...]

ShareIn January, Ben Bernanke gave a very important speech at the London School of Economics where he laid out the Federal Reserve’s strategy in fighting the forces of deflation and market illiquidity (see post with videos here).  His was a strategy that took the Japanese variant of quantitative easing one further – toward what I [...]

ShareIn today’s morning with Dave article, Gluskin Sheff’s Chief Economist and Strategist says the macro environment makes it look like 2007 all over again – as if the crisis never happened.
It’s like 2008 and early 2009 never happened. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index just hit a 14-month high as the island benefits from Chinese growth, [...]

ShareThere is an enormous dichotomy in foreign exchange markets that has wide-ranging implications for the global economy.  In Europe, most currencies float freely against the U.S. dollar. In Asia and the Mideast, most do not.
What this has meant in practice is two things. First, as the U.S. dollar has weakened, it has done so [...]

ShareMarshall Auerback here with a few thoughts on employment policy and the limit to government spending in a fiat currency regime.
The Detroit story Edward just posted illustrates that we should start by eliminating the notion that society requires a buffer stock of unemployed people to discipline wage demands and protect profits.  Not only is this immoral and [...]