Englund

S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed that home prices increased 18.6% from a year ago in June Aug. 31, 2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/home-prices-see-record-growth-for-third-straight-month-but-relief-is-in-sight-for-home-buyers-11630416326 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA# https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/p/house-prices-increase-sharply-in

Tapering merely required “substantial further progress” compared to the dire situation at the end of last year, and we’re pretty much there.  Raising interest rates will require “maximum” employment, and under the new regime heralded a year ago in Wyoming, even price gains above target won’t change that; average inflation targeting, or AIT,  means that the index can be allowed to run above the official goal of 2% for a while before borrowing costs start to go up. John Authers Bloomberg 31 August 2021  https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-08-31/powell-dodging-taper-tantrum-still-faces-inflation-test Chair Jerome H. Powell Jackson Hole https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/08/chair-jerome-h-powell-jackson-hole.html

 

Don Kohn calls on Congress to pass financial stability mandates for regulators arguing that the central bank must prepare now for a potential bubble bursting through prudential regulation. One strategy for insulating the U.S. economy from the bursting of an asset bubble would be to require major banks to fund themselves with less debt and more equity, in the form of retained earnings or money raised from stockholders. In a a speech to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Don-Kohn_Jackson-Hole-2021.pdf Kohn urged the Fed to increase the counter-cyclical capital buffer, something that Randal Quarles, the current Fed vice chairman for financial supervision, has resisted doing MarketWatch Aug. 30, 2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/former-fed-official-warns-of-urgent-threat-of-another-financial-crisis-11630346930?mod=mw_latestnews  

The convergence of many seemingly unrelated elements has produced an explosion of brainlessness   Lance Morrow WSJ Aug. 29, 2021 https://www.wsj.com/articles/idiocy-stupidity-afghanistan-covid-vaccine-maga-trump-civility-privacy-common-sense-11630271666?st=268ju0w34syl4ir&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink   All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope. Winston Churchill   "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" https://www.internetional.se/hsr.htm

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAL1kYjsVHE

Money & Macro  Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhaLYWRaTPo  

The belief that increasing money supply leads to inflation does have a distinguished theoretical foundation I rely heavily on a recent research report by two members of the Asset Allocation team at Boston-based GMO (James Montier and Philip Pilkington). https://www.gmo.com/europe/research-library/part-1-inflation--tall-tales-and-true-causes/ As Montier and Pilkington point out, this equation in itself is largely unobjectionable, since it simply holds that “expenditure equals income, which is nothing more than an identity.” Yet to translate the formula into a forecast about inflation, they note, “one has to make some rather unrealistic assumptions, such as velocity being fixed and output being fixed. There is no agreement on what even counts as money in the first place. Take what happens when the Federal Reserve purchases bonds as part of its Quantitative Easing program. As Montier and Pilkington explain: “Essentially, the Fed buys fixed income assets (like government bonds) from the pr...

Many Germans sympathized with (even if they didn’t quite follow) Sinn’s argument that the way the ECB supported the peripheral economies through its TARGET2 settlement system amounted to a covert “transfer union.” What the Southern Europeans needed to do was what Germany had done after 2003: to reduce their price and wage levels, and thereby regain domestic competitiveness. This was a constant refrain in the German press. Like many others, I said at the time that such arguments made little sense. Even in the midst of the pandemic, it took the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to force through the long-overdue fiscal integration that had always been implicit in the project of a single European currency. Niall Ferguson Bloomberg 29 augusti 2021 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-08-29/how-angela-merkel-turned-back-the-clock-of-german-history Germany, it says, will never accept a “transfer union”. Target 2 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2019/09/germany-it-says-will-never-...

Den största skuldökningen på ett kvartal någonsin.  Endast 11 miljarder netto gick in i nyproducerade lägenheter, så resten av skulderna gick icke-produktivt till att tävla om vem som kan skuldsätta sig mest för en bostad som redan existerade. Ökningstakten på skulderna steg med 44% jämfört med första kvartalet och 20% mer än tidigare rekordet från det fjärde kvartalet 2016.  Cornucopia 28 augusti 2021 https://cornucopia.cornubot.se/2021/08/hushallens-skulder-okade-med-94.html

The failure to control migration has brought down empires before. Only in art and lore was Rome suddenly sacked by barbarians who appeared out of nowhere.  In reality, climate change and turmoil in central Asia — sound familiar? — caused wave after wave of mass migration, of Vandals, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Alans and others.  These were people who wanted to settle peacefully inside the Empire. Unable either to keep them out or to integrate them, the Western Roman Empire as an entity gradually atrophied and eventually collapsed. The EU needn’t end the same way. But it could.  https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-08-28/mass-migrations-could-yet-bring-europe-down Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 2.0 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2019/12/decline-and-fall-of-roman-empire-20.html

 – för att inte tala om att höja styrräntorna. Sammantaget ökade skulderna till 355 procent av världens BNP. Inte konstigt att finansmarknaden är orolig för vad som händer om centralbankerna börjar att trappa ned stödet, och räntorna därmed stiger. En lösning är att politikerna axlar mer av ansvaret för att stimulera ekonomin genom att låna ännu mer pengar. Men då fortsätter staternas skulder att öka, vilket gör dem ännu mer sårbara för om räntorna stiger någon gång i framtiden. Johan Carlström SvD 2021-08-27 https://www.svd.se/centralbankerna-har-gillrat-sin-egen-falla För varje dag som går med nollränta växer problemen Hushåll, företag och stater ökar sin skuldsättning. Allt fler köper bostäder och aktier till stigande kurser. Allt sämre företag kan sälja sina skräpobligationer, junk bonds. Alla är glada. Utom riksbankscheferna som vet att de inte har någon plan för återgång till något slags normalitet. Hur skall detta sluta? Det är väl skriande uppenbart. Det kommer att sluta il...

N. Gregory Mankiw Harvard University December 12, 2019  https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mankiw/files/skeptics_guide_to_modern_monetary_theory.pdf

 Lake Mead, a reservoir formed by the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, is one of the most important pieces of infrastructure on the Colorado River, supplying fresh water to Nevada, California, Arizona and Mexico.  The reservoir hasn’t been full since 1983. In 2000, it began a steady decline caused by epochal drought. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/sunday-review/colorado-river-drying-up.html The Colorado River provides drinking water for 1 in 10 Americans Bloomberg 2019-08-15 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-colorado-river-provides-drinking.html Decline of one of California's most important water sources  BBC 17 August 2021 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/08/eecline-one-of-californias-most.html

Att spara sig ur kriser har i decennier varit det enda påbudet från såväl ansvarstagande finansministrar som världens tyngsta organisationer och experter, däribland OECD och Internationella Valutafonden, IMF.   Nu har världens nationalekonomer gjort helt om. I samband med coronakrisen skulle det plötsligt vräkas ut offentliga pengar. Man hänvisar till bakslagen efter finanskrisen 2008-2009 då stöden drogs tillbaka för fort. Men egentligen handlar det nog mest om att det den här gången pumpats ut så många tusentals miljarder i stödpengar att man helt enkelt är livrädd för megakrasch när de dras tillbaka.  Kristina Lagerström SvT 27 augusti 2021 https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/det-svaraste-problemet-i-ekonomin-kan-anda-forbli-olost

 The timing and pace of the coming reduction in asset purchases will not be intended to carry a direct signal regarding the timing of interest rate liftoff, for which we have articulated a different and substantially more stringent test.  We have said that we will continue to hold the target range for the federal funds rate at its current level until the economy reaches conditions consistent with maximum employment, and inflation has reached 2 percent and is on track to moderately exceed 2 percent for some time. August 27, 2021 https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20210827a.htm The big fear: The Fed will be slow to rein in inflation, paving the way for a sustained take-off in prices, along with a housing bubble that policy makers will eventually have to deal with by jacking up interest rates and derailing the recovery. No longer will the Fed raise interest rates to head off higher inflation as the job market tightens. Instead, it will allow unemployment to fa...

stocks and bond yields to move in opposite directions. The U.S. inflation rate reached a 13-year high recently, triggering a debate about whether the country is entering an inflationary period similar to the 1970s. What the Inflation of the 1970s Can Teach Us Today https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-we-still-dont-know-about-the-feds-bond-buying-spree-11629593493

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-27/jackson-hole-s-greatest-hits-keep-focus-on-fed-s-annual-retreat

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-corporate-debt-boom-isnt-less-risky-because-stocks-are-near-records-11630023089

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-stock-market-bulls-may-be-right-to-push-valuations-so-high-11630010176 Froth refers to market conditions preceding an actual market bubble, where asset prices become detached from their underlying intrinsic values as demand for those assets drives their prices to unsustainable levels.  https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/froth.asp

eftersom tillväxten fortsätter och nollräntan består. Redan i oktober lär vi få nya toppenrapporter från börsbolagen. Henrik Mitelman DI 23 augusti 2021 https://www.di.se/analys/tre-oroshardar-saboterar-festen-dags-for-borspaus/ ”Kombinationen av den här enorma likviditeten och att långräntorna har fallit tillbaka har gett ett fantastiskt stöd för börsen. Det är upplagt för en stökigare börs, men blir det en korrektion blir den sannolikt hastig och innebär snarare ett köpläge”, säger Erik Lundkvist. Även ett större börsras innebär köpläge, enligt kapitalförvaltningschefen. ”Skulle korrektionen bli djup leder det till att centralbankerna backar och så får börsen fart igen”, säger Coelis kapitalförvaltningschef Erik Lundkvist. DI 24 augusti 2021 https://www.di.se/nyheter/proffset-perfekt-storm-hotar-borsen-aktierna-att-kopa-i-kaoset/ https://coeli.se/

to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions (particularly carbon dioxide) substantially. Unfortunately, there are few signs that this is happening. The more obvious that the climate crisis becomes in people’s daily lives, the clearer it will be that we are running out of time.  The issue increasingly will drive international politics, forcing a realignment away from traditional geopolitics and toward a new dispensation of joint planetary responsibility. After all, no state – no matter how powerful – can solve this problem alone. The task requires the solidarity and cooperation of all humankind. Unfortunately, the history of our species shows that genuinely inclusive global cooperation is not one of our strong suits.  Joschka Fischer Project Syndicate 20 August 2021 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/climate-change-from-state-egoism-to-new-era-of-planetary-responsibility-by-joschka-fischer-2021-08  Joschka Fischer; “systemic” rivalries and great-power politics have no pla...

 BBC 17 August 2021 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-58232044 Grundvattnet i Kalifornien https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/05/grundvattnet-i-kalifornien.html

Reagan dropped the income tax rate from 70% to 28%. He also was a minimal regulator—including the de-control of oil prices—which led to a huge drop—so did gold, silver and inflation.  Laffer Curve (AKA: Lower tax rates generated higher tax revenues through faster economic growth and less tax avoidance). Working with Fed Chair Paul Volcker, their combined economic policy was basically low taxes and a steady, strong, reliable king dollar.   The stock market stood at roughly 1,000 and it rose 12-fold under Reagan Larry Kudlow Fox 12 August 2021    Larry Kudlow, Krugman about https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2020/07/larry-kudlow-krugman-about.html https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2011/09/borsuppgangen-startade-i-usa-den-12.html https://www.internetional.se/ldc.html#1801volk

 – that the world has changed in ways that make steep market losses and extended periods of poor returns impossible.  Though market valuations in 1959 were nowhere close to current extremes, it’s notable that measured from the date of Graham’s remarks, periodic bear markets repeatedly brought the cumulative total return of the S&P 500 back to or below the cumulative return of risk-free Treasury bills, all the way out to August 1982 John P. Hussman, Ph.D. August 2021 https://www.hussmanfunds.com/comment/mc210808/ Börsuppgången startade i USA den 12 augusti 1982 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2011/09/borsuppgangen-startade-i-usa-den-12.html

Den 30 april 1975 intog Nordvietnamesiska trupper med ryskbyggda stridsvagnar presidentpalatset i Saigon. Den 27 augusti 1975 slog nyheten ned som en bomb i den svenska debatten" "Revolution i Sverige" stod det på DN:s löpsedlar. Boken "Löntagarfonder" hade kommit ut. Bild från BBC Då kändes det lite motigt.   https://internetional.se/index.html

 på konkreta tidsplaner för att nolla utsläppen till 2050. Ända sen 1988 har forskarnas varningar varit kristallklara. För varje år har prognoserna blivit mer säkra. Och politikerna har visserligen kommit med utsläppsmål långt fram i tiden samtidigt som utsläppen stadigt ökar. Det är en sak att besluta att utsläppen ska nollas till 2050. Men hur ser tidsplanen ut på vägen dit? Hur ska utsläppen kunna komma ner med 5-6 procent v a r j e  år när det inte ens är politiskt möjligt att höja bensinpriset?  Erika Bjerström SvT 9 augusti 2021 https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/regeringars-brist-pa-konkreta-handlingsplaner-ar-mer-skakande-an-ipcc-rapporten Without “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions” in emissions, curbing global warming to either 1.5C or even 2C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 would be “beyond reach” Financial Times 9 August 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/9a11b08c-4fb3-49ec-8939-9d853745bfce Most people cannot comprehend the prospect of catastrophic ...

 The financial crisis happened because “independent” central banks, egged on by myopic politicians, pumped up equity and debt markets with cheap money.  That caused inevitable problems because bank regulations, built over generations and designed to keep financial markets relatively orderly and mass speculation in check, had been severely diluted. And that dilution had itself happened due to a slew of campaign donations and other inducements channelled from the financial classes to ruling parties and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. Interest rates were set to juice up asset prices. Then when the bubble burst, those who caused the mess and become extremely rich in the process, were shielded from the economic wreckage bestowed on the rest of us, as banks’ vast losses were shoved on to taxpayers. Too-big-to-fail banks that “lever up” taxpayer-backed deposits to place one-way bets are anathema to free markets. The extortion of government bail-outs by a financial elite th...

som cirklar runt Arktis har rubbats av den snabba uppvärmningen. Väderlägen riskerar att låsa fast och ge extrem nederbörd, eller värmeböljor.  Erika Bjerström SvT 9 augusti 2021 https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/erika-bjerstrom-2  

 In his elegiac memoir The World of Yesterday, which he wrote while in exile from the Nazis, the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig observed that most people cannot comprehend the prospect of catastrophic changes in their situation.  Things can get incrementally worse for a long time without prompting a reaction. Once catastrophe strikes, it is too late to act. Climate change-induced weather events are one obvious type of catastrophe. These could render uninhabitable large, densely populated parts of the planet, and it might already be impossible to avert large-scale population movements stemming from them. Climate scientists need to integrate their work with that of political scientists, and epidemiologists should do the same with economists. Analyzing the risks of catastrophe creates the obligation to act now. Diane Coyle Project Syndicate Aug 5, 2021 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/global-catastrophes-human-perception-and-action-by-diane-coyle-2021-08 Diane Coyle, Pr...

House prices are rising across many major economies around the world, in the broadest boom for over two decades - but is it sustainable? https://www.ft.com/house-prices Because house prices are not directly included in the headline inflation measures that shape central banks’ mandate in advanced economies, those institutions are not required to seek to quell prices when they rise. https://www.ft.com/content/b5ad3c30-6b51-45f6-a87e-2a1a464d2945

 med intellektuell ammunition från institutioner som IMF och OECD.  USA är det land som gått längst, men debatten pågår i hela västvärlden. Utom i Sverige.  Här handlar det i stället om vikten av att återgå till ”ordning och reda” i de offentliga finanserna, värna det finanspolitiska ramverket  Ladusparandets baksida  Viktor Munkhammar DI 4 augusti 2021 https://www.di.se/analys/ladusparandets-baksida-den-svenska-strategin-ar-inte-gratis/ I den internationella debatten behandlas MMT som ett seriöst förslag. Så icke i Sverige. I Sverige tror många fortfarande att man sparar i ladorna när ekonomin går på lägre varv än nödvändigt eftersom det ger lägre statsskuld. Sparat i ladorna? Hm. Var exakt står dessa lador? Och vad innehåller dom? Jo, jag förstår att det är bildlikt menat. Men det är ändå vilseledande och fel. Produktionen kan användas för konsumtion eller investeringar. Vi sparar för framtiden genom att investera. Något annat sätt finns inte.  Guldet, eu...

The Arctic is nearing the tipping point.   The world's leading polar scientist, Dr. Peter Wadhams, is headed to Greenland to study actual conditions there.  He expects the blue ocean event, when the summer ice melts completely, to occur much sooner than anticipated, probably in the next year or two.   The blue water will absorb more of the sun's heat, further warming our planet, and the Jet Stream, which balances weather in the northern hemisphere, will be disrupted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PJon1u3U5M Väderkartan är konstig (inte som den var förr) Rolf Englund blogg 12 maj 2010 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2010/05/vaderkartan-ar-konstig-inte-som-den-var.html

 The working-age population of sub-Saharan Africa is set to increase more than twofold by 2050 to become the largest in the world, offering unprecedented opportunity for economic growth, according to S&P Global Ratings. “If jobs are not created in tandem, the demographic dividend could become a source of instability, since the relative share of young unemployed people would increase ,” the report said. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/06/sp-sub-saharan-africas-working-age-population-set-to-double-revolutionizing-its-economy.html

That austerity has contributed to the rise of right-wing populism in many European countries. Khalaf: Yes, I think we went too far back then, that was a mistake. The editorial position of the FT was supportive of the austerity policies of the British government of David Cameron and George Osborne.  Der Spiegel Interview with Financial Times Editor Roula Khalaf https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/interview-with-financial-times-editor-roula-khalaf-a-1ab6d01e-9051-4b72-94ae-79c675e83d12

 The trade gap widened to $75.7 billion Imports rose 2.1% to $283.4 billion Exports edged up 0.6% to $207.7 billion MarketWatch 5 August 2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-trade-deficit-jumps-6-7-to-record-high-as-imports-surge-11628167978 https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/current_press_release/ft900.pdf ---- We’d buy cheap goods made in other countries, and they’d buy our expensive services, and it would all balance out. That was the rationale.  Few economic rationales have failed more spectacularly. Wolf Richter 4 May 2021 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/05/services-trade-surplus-american-dream.html

The yield on ten-year Treasury bonds is 1.24%, well below the ten-year breakeven inflation rate of 2.4%. At the same time, stock markets are flirting with all-time highs. Something in all this does not add up Inflation should remain around the Fed’s target. The breakeven inflation rate also seems to be pointing to this scenario. But that doesn’t explain why the ten-year Treasury rate is so low, suggesting negative real rates over the next decade. In this scenario, however, it would be hard to justify the stock-market buoyancy  Raghuram G. Rajan Project Syndicate 2 August 2021 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/qe-bond-purchases-decrease-government-debt-maturity-by-raghuram-rajan-2021-08 Raghuram G. Rajan, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, is Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the author, most recently, of The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind. Rajan:The Third Pillar: How Markets and t...

Vad kan gå fel liksom? https://cornucopia.cornubot.se/2021/08/diskutera-spekulationsbubblan-i-sma.html Warren Buffett once told me   The macro future may not be knowable, but it certainly is important.  https://www.ft.com/content/3e45991a-ce3a-4cda-b439-1c18f74ad0c5 - Economics may be dismal, but it is not a science, John Kay https://internetional.se/aztopics.htm#economictheory

US Germany Japan France’s debt trading at sub-zero yields up to maturities of 12 years Negative yields mean investors are willing to pay for the opportunity to lend their funds.  Those who hold this debt to maturity are guaranteed to make a loss. FT 5 August 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/43280fe3-b6cd-44e1-bb75-25b0962b5ba1 Marknadsräntorna har fallit.  Någon entydig förklaring har inte experterna https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/08/marknadsrantorna-har-fallit-nagon.html Jag skulle inte kalla det marknadsräntor.  Centralbankerna, dagens Gosplan, stödköper och har därmed satt marknadens informationssignaler ur funktion. Inte bra. Men att dom gör det beror inte på att de är idioter, vilket de inte är, utan på att de fruktar vad som skulle hända om de inte stödköpte. Det är det som är oroande. Jag tycker det är skriande uppenbart att räntan världen över är för låg och att en större del av stimulanserna borde ske via finanspolitiken. Detta kan inte vara klokt. Rolf En...

For years, central bankers in the US, Europe and Japan have targeted a healthy 2 per cent rate of inflation, but none has been able to produce it. This despite continuous economic growth, significant budget deficits, rapid expansion of the money supply through quantitative easing and low interest rates — all of which are supposed to be inflationary. A memo I wrote in 2001: “You Can’t Predict. You Can Prepare.” https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/default-source/memos/2001-11-20-you-cant-predict-you-can-prepare.pdf Howard Marks FT 4 August 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/3e45991a-ce3a-4cda-b439-1c18f74ad0c5 The Law of Supply and Demand https://www.internetional.se/supplyanddemand.htm Nonsens. If the economy takes off above Stall Speed the Philips Curve will be back. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2017/08/discussions-around-death-of-phillips.html

 – En tumregel brukar vara att realräntan normalt sett ska motsvara ungefär de reala tillväxtförväntningarna i ekonomin. Så vad nedgången i realräntan pekar på är att marknaden har en väldigt dyster bild av hur tillväxten kommer se ut under de kommande tio åren, säger Pär Magnusson. – Det var många som låg i positioner för stigande räntor och så ligger man helt enkelt väldigt fel och måste stänga sina positioner, säger Robert Bergqvist. – Räntenedgången är framförallt en effekt av att Federal Reserve fortsätter att köpa statsobligationer för massiva belopp, säger Claes Måhlén. Pär Magnusson tror att det är i den amerikanska centralbankens intresse att försöka hålla räntorna låga länge. Johan Carlström SvD 4 juli 2021 https://www.svd.se/mysteriet-pa-marknaden-darfor-faller-rantorna Varför är tioårsräntan så låg? Dynamiken är uppseendväckande men inte isolerad till USA. Den som vill låna ut pengar till Tyskland får nu räkna med negativ avkastning redan nominellt även för obligationer...

adding fuel to a housing boom that has seen US prices surge at a record pace. That helped to push mortgage balances to more than $10tn — meaning about 44 per cent of the outstanding mortgage balance was originated in the past year.  FT 3 July 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/2d914791-b8c2-4083-913d-11764b9c5e18 ‘It has never been like this’: US house price spiral worries policymakers FT 4 August 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/36cdd5d2-18af-4745-88e8-b101fd4cab3f  

 United States has moved into a de facto, if not de jure, state of permanent debt monetization—a policy that began under Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell. If policies to reduce inequality lead to unsustainable increases in private and public debts, the stage could be set for the kind of stagflationary debt crisis I warned about earlier this summer. Nouriel Roubini MarketWatch 3 August 2021   https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-bidens-economic-policies-are-more-like-trumps-than-obamas-11628003140 After ‘the Minsky Moment’ crashes overheated speculative markets, ‘the Volcker Moment’ will arrive to crash the debt-burdened global economy Nouriel Roubini MarketWatch 30 June 2021 2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-looming-stagflationary-debt-crisis-will-deliver-a-one-two-punch-to-markets-and-economies-11625078897 At some point, this boom will culminate in a Minsky moment (a sudden loss of confidence), and tighter monetary policies will trigger a bust and crash. Roubini: T...

Att låna ut pengar till världens mest respekterade nationalstater ser nu ut som en ovanligt dålig affär – frågan är bara varför?  Så sent som i mars toppade den amerikanska tioåringen på 1,77 procent... den handlats ned till under 1,2 procent Dynamiken är uppseendväckande men inte isolerad till USA. Den som vill låna ut pengar till Tyskland får nu räkna med negativ avkastning redan nominellt även för obligationer med lång löptid, exempelvis 30 år. Centralbankernas köp av statspapper och tekniska faktorer. Gabriel Mellqvist DI 3 augusti 2021 https://www.di.se/analys/marknadens-krissignaler-bor-tas-med-en-nypa-salt/ Interest rates haven’t been this low in 5,000 years https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/07/interest-rates-havent-been-this-low-in.html I would like to go back to a time when we didn’t wake up in the morning wondering what the Federal Reserve would do.  Its actions have distorted the economy, repressed savers, and made the wealth and income divide far greater than ...

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tips.asp https://www.investopedia.com/

But the real story of this excellent and informative piece isn’t about the climate and what it will do to us. It’s about what the reaction to the climate will do to us. August 3, 2021 by Yves Smith https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/08/the-economist-notices-the-climate.html By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at God’s Spies https://neuburger.substack.com/p/the-economist-notices-the-climate The Economist - What’s the worst that could happen Three degrees of global warming is quite plausible and truly disastrous Rapid emission cuts can reduce the risks but not eliminate them https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/07/24/three-degrees-of-global-warming-is-quite-plausible-and-truly-disastrous

What if there had been no American War of Independence? What if Hitler had invaded Britain? What if Kennedy had lived? What if Russia had won the Cold War?  Niall Ferguson, author of the highly acclaimed The Pity of War, leads the charge in this historically rigorous series of separate voyages into “imaginary time” and provides far-reaching answers to these intriguing questions. Ferguson's brilliant 90-page introduction doubles as a manifesto on the methodology of counter-factual history. His equally masterful afterword traces the likely historical ripples that would have proceeded from the maintenance of Stuart rule in England.  This breathtaking narrative gives us a convincing, detailed “alternative history” of the West—from the accession of “James III” in 1701, to a Nazi-occupied England, to a U.S. Prime Minister Kennedy who lives to complete his term.  Virtual History: Alternatives And Counterfactuals by Niall Ferguson https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2020/09/virtual...

so if I / reader “Sagelike”/ am  Powell I'd have to ask myself how I need to play this?  I wouldn't want to be the guy who presides over an economic implosion so I'd just keep the game going to avoid being tarred with that label for all time and, I'd retire in January with reputation more or less intact and leave the mess to someone else… Debt monetization is the last and only option left on the table at this point. Interest rates can't go low enough to spur growth as they are near zero anyways nor can they rise high enough to rebalance the system without leading to debt default and depression.  QE forever doesn't work so what's left? John Mauldin 30 July 2021 https://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/policy-errors-have-consequences  

the broadest rally for more than two decades and reviving economists’ concerns over potential threats to financial stability. Claudio Borio, head of the monetary and economic department at the Bank for International Settlements Is it a bubble? FT 1 August 2021 https://www.ft.com/content/491a245d-4af7-4cad-b860-6ba51b86b45f  

Källa FT https://www.ft.com/content/a52f32ea-c9ed-4bcd-8eef-8eb9ca8da2b1  

On August 15, 1971, US President Richard Nixon announced in a televised address that he was “closing the gold window.”  By ending the dollar’s convertibility into gold (at an official rate of $35 per ounce), Nixon severed the millennia-long link between money and precious metals. To some optimists in Washington, DC, the persistence of America’s centrality to global economic governance may seem inevitable:  The US would still provide two goods that everyone needs: the English language as a common medium of expression, and the dollar as a common medium of exchange.  Enormous advances in automatic translation in recent years mean that people around the world can now rely on artificial intelligence, rather than English. As the digital revolution accelerates, the national era in money is drawing to a close. Harold James Projet Syndicate 30 July 2021 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/digital-money-alternatives-to-dollar-by-harold-james-2021-07 Harold James is Profess...

  After hibernating for months, the stock-market bears came out of their caves on July 19.  Before the bears could say, “I told you so,” the next day, July 20, the 700-plus point Dow selloff was erased by a 550-point Dow rally. While the bulls scored another victory this time, one day the market won’t reverse direction and will begin a steep correction, or worse yet, a bear market.  MarketWatch 31 July 2021 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-your-to-do-list-before-the-stock-markets-next-dive-11627360870

Mark Twain grundade inte sin förmögenhet på Tom Sawyer, utan på att skriva resehandböcker. Marco D’Eramos ”The world in a selfie” (Verso)   https://www.svd.se/unescos-lista-over-kulturarv-skadar-miljon