Englund

och att det inte framgår hur Riksbanken ska hantera frågor där nationell lagstiftning står i konflikt med EU-rätten. Riksbanken 31 maj 2021 https://www.riksbank.se/sv/press-och-publicerat/tal-och-presentationer/2021/ingves-flexibilitet-avgorande-for-riksbanken-i-en-tid-av-forandringar/ https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/05/pa-sidan-191-i-riksbankslagens.html

Båt 80 från Larsbergs brygga/Dalenum till Frihamnen T/R, 25 kr för pensionär.  Efter rundvandring en fin stund på bryggan inför återfärden.

Karlssons första postering var ambassaden i Bogotá. Hans yrke skulle senare föra honom till bland annat Damaskus, Peking, Bonn och Istanbul. Karriären kröns som ambassadör i Prag. SvD 29 maj 2021 https://www.svd.se/hard-dom-okunskap-har-styrt-svensk-utrikespolitik En Europeisk nation eller nationernas Europa? Ingmar Karlsson Wahlström och Widstrand, 1996 http://www.nejtillemu.com/ingmarkarlsson.htm

In 1944, Friedrich A. Hayek suggested that the spontaneous order of markets was inherently superior to the supposedly dynamism-draining totalitarian order of communist or fascist regimes. The ensuing decades – when free-market economies thrived, and the Soviet Union’s centrally planned economy imploded – seemed to vindicate him. Then along came China. President Dwight Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address – the “acquisition of unwarranted influence” by the “military-industrial complex” – could continue unabated (though today it might be renamed the “military-industrial-tech-financial-media complex”). Project Syndicate 25 May 2021 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/free-markets-central-planning-chinese-governance-by-andrew-sheng-and-xiao-geng-2021-05 Det LitterärIndustriella komplexet med länk till Det Militärindustriella komplexet https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2019/10/det-litterarindustriella-komplext.html

  En ny riksbankslag Publicerad 28 maj 2021 https://www.regeringen.se/rattsliga-dokument/lagradsremiss/2021/05/en-ny-riksbankslag/ https://www.regeringen.se/49bd29/contentassets/045a703de025471681ad5477583ebd97/en-ny-riksbankslag.pdf Enkelt uttryckt vill EU-kommissionen och ECB att Sverige ska implementera de unionsrättsliga reglerna i regeringsformen och genomföra en rättslig integration av Riksbanken i Europeiska centralbankssystemet (ECBS), vilket skulle möjliggöra ett införande av euron som valuta i Sverige. Fokus 15 april 2021 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/05/forslag-om-en-ny-riksbankslag.html Riksbankskommittén har överlämnat sitt slutbetänkande ”En ny riksbankslag”   Riksbankens stabschef Anders Vredin har i egenskap av sakkunnig i utredningen lämnat ett särskilt yttrande till förslaget om ny riksbankslag.  https://www.riksbank.se/sv/press-och-publicerat/nyheter-och-pressmeddelanden/nyheter/2019/forslag-till-ny-riksbankslag/ I yttrandet heter det bl a: I utredningen säg

The so-called PCE index jumped 0.6% in April, marking the biggest monthly increase since 2008.  The rate of inflation over the past 12 months also shot up to a 13-year high of 3.6% in April from 2.4% in March. MarketWatch 28 May 2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/another-key-u-s-inflation-gauge-surges-in-april-and-hits-13-year-high-11622205893

Lagförslagen i remissen grundar sig på betänkandet som den parlamentariska Riksbankskommittén, med representanter för samtliga politiska partier i riksdagen, lämnade i slutet av 2019. Det finns alltså en bred politisk uppslutning bakom dessa förslag. https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2021/05/forslag-om-en-ny-riksbankslag/ EU-kommissionen och ECB vill att Sverige ska implementera de unionsrättsliga reglerna i regeringsformen, vilket skulle möjliggöra ett införande av euron Enkelt uttryckt vill EU-kommissionen och ECB att Sverige ska implementera de unionsrättsliga reglerna i regeringsformen och genomföra en rättslig integration av Riksbanken i Europeiska centralbankssystemet (ECBS), vilket skulle möjliggöra ett införande av euron som valuta i Sverige. Fokus 15 april 2021 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/04/eu-kommissionen-och-ecb-vill-att.html Åsa Lindhagen, Finansmarknadsminister  Som finansmarknadsminister vill jag fortsätta utveckla finansmarknaden i en grönare och mer

but how soon and by how much it will begin to reduce the pace of accumulation.  Would a mere “tapering” by the Fed from its current $80 billion a month in Treasury purchases bring about an economic contraction? Judy Shelton WSJ May 27, 2021  https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fed-lacks-precision-inflation-tools-11622153546

"I'm a market-oriented guy, but not when I'm faced with the prospect of a global meltdown"  President George W. Bush, 14 Nov 2008 cit. by  Nicole Gelinas The Fall https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Nicole-Gelinas/dp/B00JX0O9GO Mitigating the COVID Economic Crisis: Act Fast and Do Whatever It Takes CEPR Press, 2020 http://itsr.ir/en/Content/upload/COVIDEconomicCrisis.pdf#page=32 In March 2020, as Covid-19 hit the west, prices in the $21tn US Treasuries sector went haywire as market liquidity collapsed.  Relying on ad hoc emergency measures is not a good way to make policy, not least because it creates moral hazard.  So, as the March anniversary looms, the Fed should explain to the public in easy-to-understand language what created the problem, and how to avoid a repeat. Gillian Tett 4 March 2021 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-21tn-us-treasuries-sector.html Moral Hazard https://www.internetional.se/moralhazardwsjled0925.htm https://scholar.google.se/scholar?q=Mor

inspired by Charles Kindleberger, the author of the 1978 classic, “Manias, Panics, and Crashes.”  In the table below, you can see what that list is, as well as the color-coded rating he assigned to them. U.S. stocks are demonstrating most of the characteristics of a bubble, but don’t sell yet,  says strategist Steve Goldstein   MarketWatch  May 26, 2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-stocks-are-demonstrating-most-of-the-characteristics-of-a-bubble-but-dont-sell-yet-says-strategist-11622026399

Det finns sårbarheter i det finansiella systemet sedan tidigare. I euroområdet handlar det främst om svaga banker och offentliga finanser, och i Sverige om hushållens höga skuldsättning och storbankernas stora exponeringar mot bostäder och kommersiella fastigheter.  En kris på fastighetsmarknaden skulle kunna hota stabiliteten i det svenska finansiella systemet. Riksbanken 26. maj 2021 https://www.riksbank.se/sv/press-och-publicerat/nyheter-och-pressmeddelanden/pressmeddelanden/2021/ljusare-utsikter-men-riskerna-for-den-finansiella-stabiliteten-ar-fortsatt-forhojda/ Varningsord för bankernas utlandsupplåning https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2011/04/varningsord-for-bankernas.html

The beauty of today’s fractional reserve banking system – foundation for three centuries of galloping progress – is that the allocation of private money is not controlled by the state. The central banks provide safe and stable money. They do not – or rather did not – pick winners and losers. They crossed a line when they began to use QE as a routine tool of inflation management, to the point where the ECB is the preeminent buyer of European corporate bonds, and the Bank of Japan owns much of the Tokyo stock index. Do we want them to offer bank accounts directly to firms, funds, and households, competing head on with commercial private banks?  This would risk a rush to central bank safety in a financial crisis, setting off a vicious circle.  Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph 25 May 2021 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/25/crypto-freedom-promised-bitcoin-will-lead-digital-serfdom/

Totala börsvärdet 211 procent av BNP  Mikael Vilenius DI 26 maj 2021 https://www.di.se/analys/illavarslande-nar-borsen-drar-ifran-realekonomin/

The executive drew an inverted U in response to me asking where financial markets stood.  I immediately asked about the bank’s risk positioning. “Max risk on” was the rather surprising answer. The bank needed “unambiguous evidence” that the markets were turning before altering its strategy.  In the event, the bank had to be rescued in the 2008 financial crisis. Mohamed El-Erian 25 May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/9f9d00da-afb1-4b51-9a0f-6344df914bd8 WAITING FOR THE LAST DANCE “So long as the music is playing, you’ve got to keep dancing. We’re still dancing.”  Chuck Prince, former chairman and chief executive of Citigroup, interviewed only a month before the music stopped 2007.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/03/save-last-dance-for-me.html

Yet Druckenmiller’s views on currencies should not be cavalierly dismissed.  This is the man, after all, who with George Soros “broke” the Bank of England when he made a hugely profitable bet back in 1992 on sterling leaving the European exchange rate mechanism. The question then is are there circumstances in which what still amounts to dollar dominance suddenly could turn into a dollar rout? John Plender FT 25 May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/408d4065-f66d-4368-9095-c6a8743b0d01 Kronkursförsvaret 1992 https://internetional.se/iccab92.htm Former chancellor Norman Lamont speaks out, 25 years after the UK crashed out of the ERM He predicted Brexit as far back as the 1990s because he was alarmed at talk of a single currency and political union. ‘My friends said it was just rhetoric, but I realised there was a significant element among European countries that were deadly serious about creating a state called Europe. I personally find that not something I want to live in. ‘I don’t believ

Inte heller på den så kallade realränteobligationsmarknaden prissätts någon inflationsbrasa.  Amerikanska inflationsjusterade obligationer indikerar 2,4 procents inflation som snitt under 2020-talet, en nivå som centralbanken anses tolerera eftersom korträntemarknaden visar att det dröjer länge innan en första räntehöjning ligger i korten. Ett annat sätt att se på detta är att jämföra styrräntorna med nominell BNP-tillväxt, alltså tillväxt i vanlig mening plus inflation. Över en längre tid är det rimligt att dessa är ungefär lika, en idé som förfäktades redan för många år sedan av Lundaekonomen Knut Wicksell (1851-1926), om än i finare nationalekonomiska termer. Inflationen stiger, långa räntor lyfter och centralbankerna fortsätter att bekämpa deflation som vore vi i en finanskris. Det är vår verklighet under de kommande 12 månaderna. Det gagnar börsen.  Henrik Mitelman 25 maj 2021 https://www.di.se/analys/inflationstecknen-rasslar-in-men-tina-vinner-anda-matchen/ Knut Wicksell https:/

“We are not going to stop the terrorists from killing people just by preaching,” he said. “We need arms. We need military capacities and that is what we are going to provide, to help our African friends. Because their security is our security.” The African countries of most security concern to Europe were formerly occupied by France. EU-trained Libyan coastguards have been accused of human rights abuses in their operations to stop migrants crossing the Mediterranean to the EU. FT May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/dd29eb4d-1fc0-4123-ada1-290c4c63d966

Was anyone really surprised by the Colonial pipeline ransomware attacks?  Or the PG&E grid failure? Or Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 great financial crisis, the Fukushima nuclear disaster or the Covid-19 pandemic? FT 23 May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/add77982-a162-4a29-a588-47c5cf121b28 Black Swan https://www.internetional.se/factorpricequal.htm#blackswan

where everyone lived in large open-plan apartments overlooking sun-dappled harbours.  The truth about Swedish society was far darker and more complex. Geiger (Zaffre £12.99), a fast-paced thriller by screenwriter Gustaf Skordeman, sheds light on a little-known era: the political left’s decades-long love affair with the former East Germany until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989. FT 17 May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/a5bb6c30-c6a2-4725-ad34-11d3472ade39 Geiger av Gustaf Skördeman https://www.bokus.com/bok/9789177954248/geiger/

Samhället dras isär från två håll.  Den ena förklaringen är den historiskt höga invandringen under 2000-talet  Den andra förklaringen är att priserna på tillgångar som aktier och bostäder har rusat i värde under lång tid.  En väninna till mig köpte en villa på Lidingö för 7,4 miljoner kronor för tio år sedan. I dag är samma hus värderat till 16,1 miljoner  Det finns också ekonomiska risker med att låta boprisrallyt fortsätta utan att lyfta så mycket som ett finger.  Sist men inte minst borde borgerligheten ställa sig frågan: Är det verkligen detta samhälle som vi vill ha – där du blir rik genom att äga, inte genom egen ansträngning? Expressen Anna Dahlberg 15 maj 2021 https://www.expressen.se/ledare/anna-dahlberg/aven-hogern-borde-bry-sig-om-de-vaxande-klyftorna/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M_fN1ZeGJ4 Bitcoin neither a currency nor financial asset, but ‘looks like a bubble’: Roubini MarketWatch 24 May 2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-not-even-a-reliable-hedge-for-risk-off-events-let-alone-inflation-shocks-nouriel-roubini-11621873405 Ark Invest has lost about nearly $2 billion in investor dollars in May cathie-woods-ark-innovation-etf.html

Hon är duktig, Jemma. https://www.ft.com/content/c81a3d20-a320-490f-86fa-13e17104fa78

accused his former alma mater of carrying out a disguised fiscal bailout of insolvent countries under the guise of quantitative easing Peer Steinbrück, former leader of the Social Democrats and ex-finance minister, is the latest among a widening group of German elder statesmen to demand an immediate return to economic orthodoxy.  He warned last week in a joint broadside with Bavaria's ex-premier Edmund Stoiber that galloping inflation risks setting off a “social explosion”, destroying basic trust and the foundations of the German social market economy.  Their article was undersigned by a roster of German politicians and illuminati spanning the political spectrum. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph 18 May 2021 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/21/europes-boom-gathers-pace-beware-german-backlash/

The International Energy Agency has mapped out a pathway for limiting global warming to 1.5C Total energy consumption in 2050 would be less than it is today because of improvements in efficiency, even though the global economy will be 40 per cent larger than it is now. (Hm) Existing government climate plans, which were also examined by the IEA in this report, will only cut emissions by 35 per cent by 2050. FT 21 May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/f9a03568-1cb1-4218-a519-5fcbe528d03a Can We Have Both Industrial Civilization and a Habitable Planet? https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/05/can-we-have-both-industrial.html  

I en recension av pekoralen ”Sanningens ögonblick” summerade tidningen Arbetets kulturredaktör Johannes Klenell antalet ”jag” till  1772, motsvarande drygt två procent av den totala textmängden. Centerpartiet profilerar sig som ett parti med fjortisar som företrädare och med småbarn som kärnväljare. Partiledaren själv är kanske det mest påtagliga exemplet. SvD 20 maj 2021 https://www.svd.se/centerpartiet-har-blivit-ett-fikarum-for-fjortisar

An unspoken idea behind post-1945 “modernisation theory” was that the ultimate society was the US.  Robert Kagan captured this nearly 20 years ago with his observation, “Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus.” But now Americans are abandoning the god of war. Seven in 10 American millennials now say they would vote for a “socialist”, by which most probably mean a social-democratic Nordic type rather than a Venezuelan expropriator. Biden has heard them. US in its previous social-democratic phase from about 1933 to 1980 remained innovative: it became the world’s first motorised society, built the atomic bomb and landed men on the moon.  Simon Kuper FT 20 May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/a5632495-9450-4c37-af2d-64c7867830b1

Entitled “Life Among the Econ”, it described the profession as if an anthropologist were observing a traditional community “in the far North”.  “The facts (a) that the Econ are highly status-motivated, (b) that status is only to be achieved by making ‘modls’, and (c) that most of these ‘modls’ seem to be of little or no practical use,”  Bernstein and Tedeschi issued a memo last month explaining why. “Summers is flat out wrong,” Bernstein declared. Summers comes from this mainstream tradition. But the White House trio view the economy as a complex, evolving system without any single equilibrium.  Gillian Tett FT 20 May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/ecf08d1b-88e3-4c0e-ae3d-8242f52db278 Summers said monetary and fiscal policymakers had “underestimated the risks, very substantially, both to financial stability as well as to conventional inflation of protracted extremely low interest rates”. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/05/policy-projections-suggesting-that.html

Vi listar 15 starka anledningar till varför du ska välja en Mac nästa gång du köper en ny dator. https://macworld.idg.se/2.1038/1.641970/mac-battre-an-pc

That is the verdict of the IEA (with the IMF) in its encyclopedic roadmap on global energy on the way to a 1.5 degree world.  Net zero by 2050 is the closest thing we have to catechism.  The report is the bell that tolls for the fossil age . Not even natural gas escapes the cull. Net zero does not leave the world’s poor behind: it saves them. It is the cheapest way to reach 800 million people with no electricity, and a further 2.6 billion people with no clean cooking option.  Rural Africa leap-frogs beyond the old model. It goes straight to micro-grids based on solar power and batteries, getting cheaper by the day. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph 18 May 2021 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/20/ieas-damascene-conversion-net-zero-makes-us-richer-cuts-energy/

Between September and February bitcoin added about $800 billion in market value.  https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-and-dogecoin-prices-tumble-as-investors-sour-on-cryptos-11621435489 Bitcoin tumbles below $40,000 after China issues crypto warning First Published: May 19, 2021 at 4:12 a.m. ET https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-tumbles-below-40-000-after-china-issues-crypto-warning-11621411944 There will be howls of protest from the crypto-crowd but Beijing may have burst the bubble for good this time. The intervention of Beijing may prove even more cataclysmic to claims that Bitcoin’s price surge is supported by its inevitable entry into the mainstream.  Tesla’s brief acceptance was an aberration explained by the whims of its mercurial founder, not the beginning of some embrace by the global financial system, as some mistakenly rushed to declare. Bitcoin’s longer-term prospects depend on it becoming mainstream. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/19/chinese-crackdown

While I understand why the Fed changed its monetary framework, I am unpersuaded it was a good idea. It means driving while looking into the rear-view mirror. The stock market is more than generously priced by historical standards, with bubble phenomena everywhere. The doctrines of “modern monetary theory” are highly influential, as well.  All this together has strengthened lobbies for cheap money and big fiscal deficits, and weakened ones for prudence. Martin Wolf 18 May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/5d2aef18-e9c4-486a-8323-c5fc6addf5f7

Yves here. Thomas Neuberger raises a question that has troubled us for some time: how much do we have to give up of our modern lifestyles to save the planet?  On the one hand, if we don’t, Little Home on the Prairie-level civilization is likely to be a good oucome circa 2250.  Posted on May 19, 2021 by Yves Smith https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/05/can-we-have-both-industrial-civilization-and-a-habitable-planet.html America’s climate envoy John Kerry has been ridiculed for saying technologies that don’t yet exist will play a huge role in stabilising the climate. He said: “You don't have to give up quality of life to achieve some of the things we want to achieve. BBC 17 May 2021 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57135506

The euro zone’s central bank ECB is particularly concerned about a higher corporate debt burden in countries with larger services sectors, because this could increase pressure on governments and lenders in these nations. “As this support is gradually removed, considerably higher insolvency rates than before the pandemic cannot be ruled out, especially in certain euro area countries,” the ECB said in a statement. CNBC 19 May 2021 https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/19/ecb-financial-stability-report-may-2021.html ----- German inflation will break above 3pc this year, the highest since the reunification boom of the early 1990s.  This was not supposed to happen under the implicit contract of the Maastricht Treaty. Germany’s inflation rate is now structurally higher than in Club Med. Greece, Portugal, and Italy are barely out of deflation.  The eurozone is once again diverging into opposed blocs at different stages of the cycle, with different needs that cannot be met by a one-size-fits-all policy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcC1SB2tXmY

 

  Forskare har identifierat nio ”tipping points”, eller tröskelpunkter, som är aktiva redan idag. – Det är stora förändringar som vi kan se nu och det är inte baserat klimatmodeller och prognoser. Det här är data på vad som händer just nu, konstaterar Owen Gaffney på Stockholm Resilience Centre. Owen Gaffney arbetar på Stockholm Resilience Centre. Han har varit medförfattare till  en artikel om tipping points  som publicerats i tidskriften Nature och är medförfattare till en bok om tipping points.  Han är även medproducent till en dokumentär med David Attenborough om samma ämne.  SvT 17 maj 2021 https://www.svt.se/nyheter/vetenskap/experten-om-tipping-points-det-ar-en-kamp-mot-klockan

The story goes like this. When inflation is low, rising inflation is a good thing for stocks.  As inflation rises further, the gains for stocks decrease, because deflation risk is forgotten and the prospect of a more active Fed counteracts the continued benefit from a stronger economy.  The 4% logic isn’t written in stone, but it has reasonable historic support. Since the S&P 500 was created in 1957 U.S. inflation has risen above 4% nine times, and in eight of those cases stocks were lower three months later. James Mackintosh WSJ May 18, 2021 https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflations-magic-number-is-four-11621355006

Summers said monetary and fiscal policymakers had “underestimated the risks, very substantially, both to financial stability as well as to conventional inflation of protracted extremely low interest rates”. FT 18 May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/9935be40-d041-4b7d-acac-4d86f3c25100

Companies’ eagerness to buy their own shares has been credited with helping drive the 11-year bull market that ended last year.  Between 2010 and the end of 2019, S&P 500 companies poured nearly $5.3 trillion into the stock market through share repurchases WSJ 16 May 2021 https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-are-flush-with-cashand-ready-to-pad-shareholder-pockets-11621157406 Companies already announced  $800 billion planned stock buybacks  After last year’s record of almost $1.2 trillion MarketWatch 12 August 2022 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-buybacks-near-800-billion-this-year-after-hitting-all-time-record-11660333956 In 2016, total corporate debt increased by $717 billion, n et investment in plant and equipment fell by $21 billion.  Where did the money go? Buybacks and dividend payouts https://internetional.se/shares2016.htm#1801bb Profits GONE as Debt Used For Record High Stock Buybacks The Money GPS 19 May 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqlwIPEZGdI

In total, according to a  study  from Princeton University, electrifying nearly all transport and buildings could contribute to doubling or more the amount of electricity used in the U.S. by 2050.  If we’re going to rely much more on electricity, we need to know the grid isn’t going to break down. Right now, we don’t know that, even for today’s level of demand.  Sections of today’s grid were built in the 1950s and 1960s and are approaching end-of-life conditions. WSJ 15 May 2021 https://www.wsj.com/articles/electrification-of-everything-11620843173

When the subprime bubble burst, the bank’s fortunes quickly turned. In September 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, Killinger was forced out by the company’s board, and ultimately the bank was seized by federal regulators.  It still stands as the largest bank failure in U.S. history. In their new book, “Nothing Is Too Big to Fail: How the Last Financial Crisis Informs Today,”  Kerry Killinger and his wife Linda, who previously served as the vice chair of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines, explore WaMu’s failure, the government’s response to the last crisis and where there is growing risk in today’s economy. MarketWatch 18 May 2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-former-ceo-of-washington-mutual-foresees-another-housing-bubble-and-he-blames-the-fed-11621287287 Financial Crisis at IntCom https://internetional.se/hedgefunds2016.htm https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55319107-nothing-is-too-big-to-fail

Nu är det bara några medelålders ekonomer som kommer ihåg att centralbankernas viktigaste uppgift är att bekämpa inflationen. För det var så det var tänkt på den tiden. Istället för att acceptera det som vi konsumenter gillar – lägre priser på tvättmaskiner med mera – så skulle Stefan Ingves och hans kolleger runt om i världen säkerställa att priserna prompt borde öka med 2 procent.  Från Norrmalmstorg går jag till ett kafé i närheten av centralen och äter en minismörgås med en liten bryggkaffe. 78 kronor. Jag accepterar och justerar förväntningsbilden. Henrik Mitelman 18 maj 2021 https://www.di.se/analys/overhettning-nara-ingves-kommer-inte-att-agera-innan-det-ar-for-sent/

Martin Winter som under många år var kollega som korrespondent för Suddeutsche Zeitung i Bryssel har skrivit en klarsynt analys över tillståndet i EU (i tidskriften Cicero).  Hans slutsats är att coronakrisen på ett alarmerande sätt blottat svagheterna i EU-bygget. Under lång tid har tankarna på en allt starkare sammanslutning inom EU byggt på föreställningen att en liten grupp kärnländer med Tyskland och Frankrike i spetsen skulle bilda ett avant garde. Kärnan skulle fungera som ett gravitationscentrum skulle attrahera andra länder att följa efter.  Det är ju tankefiguren bakom den gemensamma valutan. Rolf Gustavsson SvD 17 maj 2021 https://www.svd.se/maste-super-mario-radda-aven-eu-nu

Tittar man dessutom på ränteutgifterna som andel av hushållens inkomster har de aldrig varit så låga som nu. Emma Persson, privatekonom på Länsförsäkringar, är inne på samma linje. – När man väl kommer in på bostadsmarknaden är det så, men man vet aldrig vad som händer med räntorna framöver, säger hon. SvD 17 maj 2021 https://www.svd.se/ekonom-har-aldrig-varit-sa-billigt-att-kopa-bostad

 — the anniversary of the victory of the protestant William of Orange over the deposed Catholic king James II in 1690 — as a particular flashpoint.  https://www.ft.com/content/0d713dc4-b9b5-4350-9faa-ff0017c9bb94 The Battle of the Boyne was fought on 1 July 1690 between the armies of the Catholic King James II of England, Scotland and Ireland and the Protestant Dutchman William of Orange. William had deposed James, his uncle and father-in-law, from the throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1688  but James had escaped to France, then Europe's premier military superpower, who had rearmed the fallen monarch and fellow Catholic in the interests of seeing William, an enemy of Louis XIV, brought down. Revitalised, James had begun his campaign to regain the English crown in Ireland in 1689. The Williamites feared the consequences of a Catholic resurgence and took up arms to protect the new status quo. Interestingly, their cause even had the backing of the Pope, who was opposed to King Loui

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/category/the-dismal-science

U.S. Drought Imperils Economy in California’s Farm Country The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has cut the water allocations for many to zero this year.  Last year, when the latest dry spell began, the same farmers were allocated 20% of what they are contracted to receive annually. Growers are paying four times normal prices for water and letting almond trees die as federal government cuts or ends water allocations Drought is afflicting 88% of the American West, up from 40% a year ago WSJ 21 May 2021 https://www.wsj.com/articles/drought-imperils-economy-in-californias-farm-country-11621589407 Drought-stricken western states face a water crisis and another dangerous fire season MarketWatch May 15, 2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/drought-stricken-western-states-face-a-water-crisis-and-another-dangerous-fire-season-11621006692 In California, dry soils and a warmer than average spring this year caused an “historic and unanticipated” reduction in the volume of water flowing into the state

Many years ago someone who was not remotely sympathetic to Communism told me that he dreaded the collapse of the Soviet Union because the Cold War balance of threat between the two superpowers was the only thing preventing global chaos.  In the West where it was legally possible to converse about these things, there was ongoing and very serious discussion of the merits of capitalism and private enterprise vs state ownership of property and a command economy. We have returned to a Dark Age where reason and actual disputation are considered dangerous: where views contrary to those being imposed by what are often nothing more than activist cults can be criminalised.  Janet Daley Telegraph 15 May 2021 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/15/free-society-finished-fail-resist-new-dark-age-unreason/

The CORE Project is an online teaching tool and free, open-access textbook.  For example, in contrast to conventional economics, CORE assumes that individuals are pro-social and myopic, rather than selfish and far-sighted. Competition is imperfect, with winner-take-all characteristics, rather than perfect.  Power is ever-present in the form of principal-agent relationships in labor and credit markets, instead of being treated as either diffuse or exogenous.  The ideas dominant since the 1980s – variously called the Washington Consensus, market fundamentalism, or neoliberalism – originally gained traction because of the perceived failures of Keynesianism and excessive government regulation.  But they took on a life of their own and produced highly financialized, unequal, and unstable economies that were unequipped to cope with today’s most significant challenges: climate change, social inclusion, and disruptive new technologies. All of our previous policy paradigms – whether mercantilis

Rolf Englund på Facebook 14 May 2021 Rising inequality was becoming ever more of a political issue, threatening to provoke popular backlashes against capitalism itself. FT 14 May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/747a76dd-f018-4d0d-a9f3-4069bf2f5a93

The fall in interest rates over the past 40 years is the story that, along with its brother in arms, money printing, explains all other financial stories.  Merryn Somerset Webb FT 14 May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/3be9697a-d13b-4e5f-b960-14f587f8c820

The excess savings of US households have reached $2.3 trillion.  The New York Fed said people have been using a third of their unspent holdings to pay off debt. But that does not mean they will continue to do so. They may go on a spree instead as the country reopens. Interest rates are zero and the Fed is still buying $120bn of bonds each month, directly financing part of Washington’s "war economy" debt issuance.  It is persisting even though the broad M3 money supply has grown at 24pc over the last year.  Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph 13 May 2021 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/13/markets-losing-faith-federal-reservescredibility/ When the Fed increases the money supply, people they just sit on it “What problem is cryptocurrency supposed to solve, exactly?” And at some point the answer always devolves to some version of “Fiat money is doomed because the Fed won’t stop running the printing press.” So it seems to me that it would be useful to talk about why tha

From New Zealand to the United States, Germany, China and Peru, the same phenomenon has taken hold: home prices are skyrocketing, and many buyers are panicking. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/13/business/global-real-estate-prices/index.html Americans expect home prices to rise — but most people think it’s a good time to buy a home anyway Gallup’s survey found that 71% of Americans believe that home prices are going to increase over the next year in their local market. This is the highest reading since Gallup began tracking this data point, though it is not statistically different from 2005’s measure of 70%. MarketWatch May 11, 2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-vast-majority-of-americans-expect-home-prices-to-rise-but-most-people-think-its-a-good-time-to-buy-a-home-anyway-11620683759

 In the 2017 election, a divided pessimist vote let Emmanuel Macron’s small optimists’ party into power.  Yet each strand of the French spectrum still nurtures its pet apocalyptic scenario: neoliberal hegemony for the left, Islamist takeover for the far right, climate apocalypse for greens, end of national grandeur for Gaullists and Présidente Le Pen for Macronists. Simon Kuper FT 13 May 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/f11a1c21-4744-4b7d-afdb-f361c1d3a319

  Här länk till Drönarview av Pizzerian.

Han som gjort filmen heter Erik Kotschack Min pappa hade några gånger äran att spela tennis med hans pappa, grundare av Radio Nord https://www.lidingonyheter.se/film-om-lidingo-for-demensdrabbade/ https://www.traditionstv.se/#Filmer-dinstad

  Mattias Isaksson, chefsstrateg på Swedbank räknar med volatila börser både i USA och Sverige den närmaste tiden. SVD 13 maj 2021