Sandbu: Some of the greatest cheerleaders for fiscal tightening a few years back are undergoing a Damascene conversion

In its latest Economic Outlook, the OECD gives a thumbs-up to Donald Trump’s plans (if that is what they are) to enact a large fiscal stimulus and increase infrastructure spending

Martin Sandbu FT 30 November 2016

Almost exactly ten years after the last housing bubble burst, the average home price has now climbed back above the record reached more than a decade ago.

Bringing to a close the worst period for the housing market since the Great Depression.

zerohedge 29 November 2016

Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie

 François Fillon’s pole position in the race to become the next president of France owes much to the votes and enthusiasm of one of the country’s quietest and least understood political forces: the discreet bourgeoisie of its more affluent provinces.

Full text

Borgarklassens diskreta charm (originaltitel: Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie) är en fransk surrealistisk, satirisk dramakomedifilm från 1972 i regi av Luis Buñuel.

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The end game may have finally arrived for Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA

Has until year-end to raise 5 billion euros of capital - seven times its current market value 

Bloomberg 23 November 2016

Greece. By the end of this year IMF may decide finally to detach itself from the rescue programme and leave Europe to sort out its own mess.

FT editorial 23 November 2016

When a man goes bankrupt it happens in two ways: first gradually, then suddenly. Ernest Hemingway

Tail risks wagging the dog with Wall Street fear gauge

Markets, in moments of extreme stress, are prone to reset their expectations for the future violently, rather than in a smooth and orderly manner. 

Miles Johnson, FT 21 November 2016

Munchau Italy’s referendum. December 5, Europe could wake up to an immediate threat of disintegration

Failure by the EU to construct a proper economic and banking union after the eurozone crisis of 2010-2012 and to impose austerity instead. 

If you want to know why Angela Merkel cannot be the leader of the free world, look no further. 

The German chancellor could not even lead Europe when it mattered.

Wolfgang Münchau, FT 20 November 2016

About Italy at IntCom

Britannica: 5 of the World’s Most-Devastating Financial Crises

https://www.britannica.com/list/5-of-the-worlds-most-devastating-financial-crises

More at IntCom

David Stockman: Doom is Near. Reagan and Trump.

That fantastically inflated financial bubble which has been building since January 1981 will finally implode. 

And this time it will stay imploded because the monetary and fiscal branches of the state have fully exhausted their capacity to defy the fundamental laws of economics and sound finance.

Contra Corner 18 November 2016

Market Monetarist: Trump’s policies combined with Fed’s likely response likely to cause the US trade deficit to balloon

Trump’s own policies combined with the Federal Reserve’s likely response to the fiscal expansion 
(higher interest rates) in itself is likely to cause the US trade deficit to balloon.

The Market Monetarist, 18 November 2016

Coppola: Should Greece leave the Euro?

But this is the wrong question. 

Unless there is a considerable shift in Eurozone politics, Greece WILL leave the Euro - eventually. 

The question is when, and how.

Coppola, 8 June 2016

Swedbank varnar att tusentals bostadsrättsföreningar står inför avgiftshöjningar

Larmgränsen har Swedbanks bostadsrättsexperter satt vid ett sparande på 150 kronor per kvadratmeter och år.

Johan Hellekant, SvD 17 november 2016

Ska du köpa en bostadsrätt är det nödvändigt att gå igenom föreningens årsredovisning för att se hur det står till med ekonomin. Klarar du inte att tyda årsredovisningen själv måste du be om hjälp.

Maria Crofts DN 17 november 2016

Om avskrivningar i Brf hos IntCom

In the second quarter of 2016, US real GDP per head was still only 4 per cent above its pre-crisis peak, almost nine years before.

Martin Wolf FT 8 November 2016

Flood of money into inflation protected bonds

In the bond sell-offs of 2013 and 2015, the difference between the nominal yield on 10-year US Treasurys and the real yield (which strips out the rate of inflation) was minimal, meaning market expectations of inflation were almost non-existent. 

Today that gap is expansive.

Fears about the damage wrought by inflation have propelled a flood of money into inflation protected bonds, with more than $1bn poured into the funds in the week to October 26 — the second largest weekly total on record, according to data from EPFR.

FT 9 November 2016

This is not a bubble. This time is different.

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/

Sandbu: It’s Mostly Fiscal is making a forceful comeback

The old joke among international macroeconomists was that the acronym IMF stood not just for the International Monetary Fund, but for “It’s Mostly Fiscal”. 

It’s Mostly Fiscal is making a forceful comeback — including at the fund — which is all the more impressive for being flipped back to front. 

The “new view” of fiscal policy, recently outlined in particular by White House economist Jason Furman, is that current economic ailments are largely due to excessively tight government budgets, and that the solution is more public borrowing and greater budget deficits. 

That also contrasts markedly with the pre-crisis consensus for normal times, which was that macroeconomic stabilisation should be handled by monetary, not fiscal policy.

This is a big change

Martin Sandbu FT 7 November 2016

Davies, New fiscal theory ?

US Output gap

E21 6 November 2016

Yellen should re-read Friedman’s “The Role of Monetary Policy” and lay the Phillips curve to rest

The Market Monetarist 

Davies, New fiscal theory ?

Fiscal policy is once again seen as effective in stimulating aggregate demand, especially when interest rates are constrained by the zero lower bound. 

The Keynesian multiplier is viewed as unusually high in such periods.

Monetary policy is believed to be severely constrained in the case of a new recession, so fiscal policy would be the only game in town.

Gavyn Davies, FT 6 November 2016

Martin Sandbu/Brad DeLong diagnoses of the ills of the Global North

One way to view the situation is that there have been four serious diagnoses of the ills of the Global North.

 They are: A Bernanke global savings-glut. 

A Krugman-Blanchard return to ‘depression economics’.

A Rogoffian-Minskyite crisis of overleverage and debt overhang. 

A Summers secular-stagnation chronic crisis.”

DeLong points out that each leads to different policy recommendations

FT 4 November 2016

Stabiliseringspolitik

Cervenka: Över 400 000 hushåll lån som motsvarar mer än fyra årslöner. Bankerna är i sin tur också högt belånade, mellan 20 och 25 gånger det egna kapitalet.

Cervenka SvD 3 november 2016

Ingves om 1992:

Denna garanti utvidgades den 24 september när regeringen meddelade att den i en proposition till höstriksdagen ämnade föreslå en allmän, statlig garanti för samtliga svenskägda banker samt några namngivna kreditinstitut med statlig anknytning.

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En annan stabilitetsskapande åtgärd var likviditetsstöd från Riksbanken. Riksbanken använde en stor del, 57 miljarder som mest, av sina vlutareservtillgångar som likviditets stöd i form av insättningar bankerna.

Härigenom motverkades minskningen av utländska "credit lines", så att neddragningen av valutadenominerade krediter till svenska kunder kunde ske mera utdraget i tiden, vilket reducerade kreditförlusterna. Riksbanken lämnade också likviditet till bostadsinstituten i ett läge där marknaden för dessas certifikat inte fungerade.

Enligt vår uppfattning stod det finansiella systemet i Sverige inför en kollaps den 24 september 1992.

Utländska långivare hade tappat förtroendet för det svenska banksystemet.

Bedömningen var att utan ett omfattande statligt ingripande hade vi stått inför en finansiell härdsmälta av aldrig tidigare skådat slag. 

Utan åtgärder kunde även i slutändan statens upplåning komma att påverkas. 

Nationens hela finansiella funktionsförmåga stod på spel.

http://www.internetional.se/9803ingv.htm#sommaren92

Jonung: Min gissning är att om vi får en ny finanskris i Sverige kommer bostadsobligationerna visa sig stå i centrum för de finansiella problemen

– Det har varit billigt för bankerna att finansiera svenska bolån med lån från utlandet. Skulle utlandet tappa förtroendet för Sverige, blir det svårt att förnya lånen. Då tvingas Riksbanken eller staten att träda in för att rädda bankerna på samma sätt som fallet var vid finanskrisen 1992.

Louise Andrén Meiton, SvD Näringsliv 3 november 2016

1992