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The finance and investing website Money Morning has a very provocative piece om Jim Rogers today. Rogers, who has been railing against the bailout of Fannie and Freddie for some time, thinks the Treasury and Federal Reserve will fail in their attempts to reflate the U.S. economy. He goes into great detail in [...]

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ECB governing council member and Dutch National Bank head Nout Wellink said two weeks ago that the ECB was going to stop lenders abusing ECB’s credit crisis policy of accepting lower credit quality. The ECB is going to make good on Wellink’s promise – but not until Feb 1st. So, get your free money [...]

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The global economy is in the relatively unique but unenviable position of being bullied by both recession and inflation at the same time. This leaves central banks in a bit of bind. The Federal Reserve has thrown all caution to the wind and cut rates in a reflationary ploy rivaling its actions during [...]

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The last place in the world you wold expect to hear support of Ben Bernanke is hear. The Bernanke Fed has been as reckless in its attempts to reflate the economy as the Greenspan Fed – probably more so. Nevertheless, when Willem Buiter, a former member of the BoE ’s Monetary Policy Committee [...]

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The minutes of the Bank of England’s most recent Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting demonstrate that Britain’s monetary policy makers are all over the shop. Most committee members voted to keep rates at 5%, but there was also a vote to raise rates as well as one to lower rates. This three-way split [...]

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Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph in London is one of the more interesting reporters on the business scene. In today’s Telegraph, he chronicles the depth and breadth of the global slowdown now taking form.
However, the crux of his article revolves around Spain and the sharp downturn they have experienced. While his article suggests [...]

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Despite my protestations that inflation is due to fall sharply over the next six months, I do have to point out that real interest rates are not only negative in the U.S. all the way across the curve, they are also negative in most of the emerging markets and now in the UK as well. [...]

This chart from the New York Times demonstrates visually what happens when the Fed lowers interest rates too much: it skews simple economic decisions like what type of mortgage product to use, often with unintended consequences.

Similarly low rates on adjustable rate mortgages enticed buyers into the housing bubble.

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In an environment where the U.S. Dollar is rising and everything is falling, one needs to pay attention to the fine details. For me, its in the UK and its 5% base interest rate.
Oil is now below $117 a barrel, so it stands to reason that inflation hawks around the world can get in the [...]

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Most Americans would have you believe that the U.S. Federal Reserve was entirely responsible for the monetary conditions which created the mother of all stock market bubbles after the LTCM bailout. Yes, the Fed was complicit in the extraordinary rise of technology in the late 1990s. However, it was the Bank of Japan [...]