Video: Quantitative Easing Revisited

Deficit fatigue has set in as large scale deficit spending has become politically unacceptable. Austerity is now in. This has caused a recession throughout Europe and weakened the US. To counteract this fiscal retrenchment, monetary authorities are ‘printing’ as much money as they can reasonably get away with.

QE is the policy choice du jour and Omid Malekan has a colorful take on what it means. Take a look

The Problem with Success

Cash accounts for almost 6% of all corporate assets and the highest in sixty years. This increase is a result of a number of factors. Record profits give businesses the wherewithal. But corporations are not rewarded for the cash holdings. Moreover, the cash is held in such instruments as money market funds, commercial paper and bank deposits

Short Note on ISM Manufacturing Survey

The Institute for Supply Management reports its January manufacturing survey on February 1. The Bloomberg consensus expects a small increase to 54.5 from

Chart of the Day: Permanent Zero and Personal Interest Income

If you are a retiree, you’re not happy these days. Five years ago, you were getting a decent return on your fixed income investments. But since then, the Fed has trashed the fixed income market by reducing interest rates to zero percent for “an extended period”. The thinking is that this will get people to take on more credit. But the reality is that a lot of people are stuffed to the gills with existing credit and are not creditworthy. The Fed is pushing on a string

I repeat: The Fed’s Permanent Zero rate policy is toxic

Permanent zero can work over the medium-term but the economy is dependent on employment growth and monetary policy doesn’t drive that

[PREMIUM] The Fed’s Rate easing and Obama’s Mortgage refi plan are bullish

Investors must still be worried about the fallout from the European meltdown. However, the situation in the US is looking much better than it did last week because of this aggressive policy response

Bond vigilantes and the currency relief valve

The last post by Randall Wray below is an interesting one because it points out how the world has changed since the end of the gold standard and why the sovereign debt crisis is centered in the euro zone.

While I have an Austrian bias overall, for me, MMT is the best way to think about nonconvertible floating exchange rate systems as distinct from fixed exchange rate, currency board, pegged and convertible systems. The difference is policy space and what I would call the bond vigilante relief valve

Government Spending with Self-Imposed Constraints

Let’s see how it is really done in the US—where the Treasury really does hold accounts in both private banks and the Fed, but can write checks only on its account at the Fed. Further, the Fed is prohibited from buying Treasuries directly from the Treasury (and is not supposed to allow overdrafts on the Treasury’s account)

Is Finland Really A Closet Member Of The Eurozone Periphery?

The country’s debt dynamics are far from unsustainable at this point, but given the weakening in the country’s export performance and the steady unwinding of the housing boom we can now anticipate I would expect growth to be weaker than either the EU or the IMF are currently anticipating, and pressure on the country to increase fiscal spending to maintain expectations to rise, with the implication that pressure on the Finnish spread over 10 year German bunds will continue, as the country risks drifting off from being part of the core towards the growing periphery, at least in the eyes of investors

China: Lots of news, signifying nothing new

I don’t think there is a whole lot to say about this week’s numbers beyond what I have been saying for the past several months. Nothing substantial has really changed. China’s external account is worsening, and will continue to worsen since global imbalances have no choice but to adjust. Growth in China is slowing but remains relatively rapid, and as unhealthy as ever, but there is little likely to be done to improve the quality of growth until 2013. Beijing will continue veering back and forth between stomping on the credit accelerator and stomping on the credit brakes as the only way they can manage the economy

Norway Surprises and Ongoing Funding Woes

By cutting 50 bp in one swoop, the Norges Bank hopes to get ahead of the curve. This is part insurance against addition headwinds, but also responds to the recent data indicating an economic slowdown

Nervous Calm over Currency Market

A good reception to a Spanish bill auction and a some what better than expected German ZEW investor survey helped stabilize the risk sentiment which had been battered yesterday. The major foreign currencies are mostly firmer on the day, but the modest gains have left the short-term momentum indicators a bit over-extended. This would seem to favor early North American participants selling into the currency bounce