Englund

 Ukrainas president Volodymyr Zelenskyj har bett EU om ett omedelbart inträde i unionen under en ny särskild procedur, rapporterar AFP. Uppdaterad: 28 februari 2022, 10:44 Publicerad: 28 februari 2022, 10:18 https://www.di.se/live/ukraina-onskar-omedelbart-eu-intrade/     Inte 1914 - 2014 Ukraine is one of us and we want them in EU, Ursula von der Leyen tells Euronews  But despite backing Ukraine for EU membership, she gave no indication it would be the rapid accession demanded by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday.  https://www.euronews.com/2022/02/27/ukraine-is-one-of-us-and-we-want-them-in-eu-ursula-von-der-leyen-tells-euronews The EU says it will buy and deliver weapons to Ukraine - the first time the bloc has financed military support for a country under attack. The move was announced by Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday evening .

Europe comes round to sanctions that really do hurt; Russia’s armed forces get bogged down and this turns into a long drawn-out conflict; Putin overplays his hand and invades a neighboring NATO member; Internal opposition brings down Putin and Russia lapses into chaos. The strength and success of the Ukrainian resistance to date, the brutality of the Russian assault, and the support for Ukraine in the rest of the world and even among Russians has seen to that.  Now, two narratives are competing for primacy. And maybe, just maybe, this is the moment when Russia turns on Putin. Liberalism at last wins the upper hand on authoritarian populism. The other narrative needs just one word: “Chaos.” Putin cannot turn back now. Like many invaders before, he will continue in the attempt to avoid humiliation. The western financial upheaval, just to enforce Russia’s new pariah status, will be immense and painful Many historical analogies are doing the rounds. I think the best might be with “Red ...

Och menar, tvärs emot den vanliga uppfattningen, att det stora hotet mot unionen snarare är ett uppror i centrum (Tyskland, Frankrike) än en fortskridande upplösning i periferin.  I bokens uppslagsrika framtidsdiskussion – en diskussion som i hög grad också beaktar östeuropeiska erfarenheter – betonar han samtidigt de historiska processernas öppna karaktär och att framsteg inte nödvändigtvis behöver vara linjära.  ”Den som en gång varit åsyna vittne till en historisk omvälvning vet att historisk determinism är en illusion.” https://daidalos.se/component/virtuemart/efter-europa.htm?Itemid=181 Samma år som EU:s östutvidgning, 2004, började jag på College of Europe i Brygge, en europeisk högskola som grundades efter andra världskriget för att fostra européer i en ”anda av solidaritet”. ..  överlag rådde hopp: en ny europeisk era skulle inledas. ...  som statsvetaren Ivan Krastev påpekar i boken ”Efter Europa”.  Det är en sak att uttrycka stöd genom fina ord och fla...

När AO har ett positivt värde ligger jetströmmen (en kraftig vind på hög höjd) ofta i ett nordligare läge  då det är allmänt lågtrycksbetonat vid nordpolen.  När AO är negativ, ligger jetströmmen ofta sydligare till följd av att högtryck dominerar över nordpolen. Hur pass stark eller svag den stratosfäriska polarvirveln är kan påverka vad vi får för väder under vintern https://www.svt.se/vader/det-har-ar-den-stratosfariska-polarvirveln  

The U.S. economy may be growing, but investors have pushed many share prices so far beyond expected earnings that even a 20% plunge would fail to make them obvious bargains. As recently as November, the Nasdaq 100 index was trading for almost six times the combined sales of its constituents, double the valuation of 18 months earlier and as high as any time in two decades At 22 times annual earnings, S&P 500 companies were considered expensive at the start of 2020, before the Covid-19 crash hit. Within a year the ratio jumped to 32, nearly twice the historic level. Even after rallying to end the week, the S&P 500 is still 8.6% below its all-time high set in January. Richly valued technology shares -- the stock market’s pandemic darlings -- are down more than 14% from their peak. Katherine Greifeld Bloomberg 26 February 2022 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-26/days-of-easy-speculation-look-numbered-in-war-shaken-stocks

https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2014/04/nato-narva-financial-times-och-carl.html The Estonian border town of 63,000 people, dominated by a fortress that straddles the river, has been thrust into the geopolitical spotlight since Russia’s invasion and annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Some have suggested that Narva could be where – after Ukraine – Russian president Vladimir Putin opts to test the Nato alliance directly. FT 11 Apri 2014 https://www.ft.com/content/9f829192-c07d-11e3-8578-00144feabdc0#ixzz2ybg0WEO9 Rysslands hot har satt ljuset på exklaven Kaliningrad Genom universitetet, grundat 1544, blev Königsberg ett andligt centrum; här verkade Immanuel Kant 1755-96. Kaliningrad har ömsat skinn många gånger genom historien. På 1200-talet hette området Königsberg och regerades av tyska korsriddare. Kaliningrads län slår in en kil mellan Polen och Litauen och har ingen egen landförbindelse med Ryssland. DN 13 februari 2022 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2022/02/rysslands-hot-har...

None of these economies benefit from having a global reserve currency and many rely on exports to drive their economies.  I described how the US dollar’s reserve currency status and our giant trade deficit keep US interest rates low. Jesse M. disagreed. First, Jesse, I try to make these things simple without being simplistic. So let me clarify:  Having the reserve currency and a large trade deficit makes US interest rates lower than they would otherwise be. That’s not necessarily lower than rates in other countries.  As Jesse correctly says, US sovereign rates are actually above equivalent-maturity bonds in Europe and Japan. John Mauldin 25 February 2022 https://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/the-three-act-recovery-plus-your-questions As long as the US runs a giant trade deficit, we are going to have lower interest rates than we would otherwise https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2022/02/as-long-as-us-runs-giant-trade-deficit.html

Det är inte fastlagt exakt när Tegnér (1782–1846) skrev sin dikt. Men dess fond är Napoleonkrigen och inte minst det finska kriget, eller 1808–1809 års krig då Sverige förlorade Finland.  ”Den svenska regeringen var inte helt oförberedd på ryska aggressioner”, skriver Wikipedia. ”Natten den 21 februari 1808 gick den ryska armén över finska gränsen utan officiell krigsförklaring.” Erik Helmerson DN 25 februari 2022 https://www.dn.se/ledare/erik-helmerson-diktklassikern-det-eviga-handlar-om-putin-och-slutar-lyckligt/ ”Det eviga”  https://www.internetional.se/deviga.htm

The short-term financial market impact of the war is already clear. In the face of a massive risk-off stagflationary shock, global equities will likely move from the current correction range (-10%) into bear market territory (-20% or more).  Safe government bond yields will fall for a while and then rise after inflation becomes unmoored.  Oil and natural gas prices will spike further – to well above $100 per barrel – as will many other commodity prices as both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of raw materials and food.  Nouriel Roubini Project Syndicate 25 February 2022 https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/russias-war-and-the-global-economy-by-nouriel-roubini-2022-02   The Stagflation Threat Is Real  Nouriel Roubini Project Syndicate Aug 30, 2021 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-stagflation-threat-is-real-roubini.html

Index för kärninflationen, (core PCE), steg 0,5 procent i januari jämfört med föregående månad och steg 5,2 procent jämfört med samma månad året innan. DI 25 februari 2022 https://www.di.se/live/feds-favoritmatt-hogsta-inflationstakten-sedan-1983/ Once volatile items such as food and energy are factored in, the PCE index jumped 6.1 per cent from the same time last year, or 0.6 per cent on a month-over-month basis.  FT 25 Februari 2022 https://www.ft.com/content/5fe1d820-c88a-4dd1-aedf-3ab1db815c82

Du har grundat Plejd och är en förmögen man med aktier för över 100 miljoner. Varför belånade du aktierna? ”Vi höll på och göra en större utbyggnad på vårt hus och ville naturligtvis inte sälja mer aktier än vi måste utan valde att belåna oss för att kunna minimera försäljningen. Vi gjorde den riskbedömningen att vi skulle kunna klara den belåningen och hålla kvar aktierna”, säger Erik Calissendorffs. Försäljningen på 47.364 aktier inbringade knappt 11,4 miljoner kronor och Plejdgrundaren äger nu 410.263 aktier som är värda närmare 120 miljoner kronor vid nuvarande kurs. DI 25 februari 2022 https://www.di.se/nyheter/plejds-grundare-om-tvangsforsaljningen-vagade-inte-riskera-att-borsen-skulle-krascha /  

The impact on markets is, personally, well down my list of concerns. But it’s my job to cover them, and this can be expected to have a big effect. I needed to fathom the thinking of traders and investors who bought U.S. stocks in such volume that they forced one of the biggest turnaround rallies in history In the medium term, investors are still as confident as ever that there will be no inflation problem. Or, to put it more bearishly, they still think the Fed will tighten too much over the next few months, and reward us with a sluggish economy thereafter. The great majority of geopolitically driven selloffs since 1945 proved to be buying opportunities. That, along with some algorithmic buying of stocks that looked cheap according to a model, probably does account for the rally in New York morning trading. The war aim seems to be decapitation of the regime, and installation of a Russian puppet. We can live with that; Ukraine has been run by Russian puppets before, and the world didn’t ...

 and, behind closed doors, divided the administration of George HW Bush.  As the Soviet Union was crumbling in 1991, US defence secretary Dick Cheney advised his boss that Washington should do everything possible to accelerate that collapse.  The US secretary of state, Bush’s old friend and tennis doubles partner James Baker, disagreed vehemently. Baker argued that it was essential to keep the Soviet Union in one piece, because otherwise its arsenal of 35,000 nuclear weapons would fragment in dangerously unpredictable ways. As its senior figures fought over what to do, Ukrainians forced the matter by holding a referendum on December 1 1991 on whether to become an independent state. The result was lopsided: with 84 per cent turnout, the vote was over 90 per cent in favour of independence. Mary Elise Sarotte FT 25 February 2022 https://www.ft.com/content/742f15fc-675a-4622-b022-cbec444651cf

Chicago wheat futures have hit $9.32 a bushel, the highest since the hunger riots before the Arab Spring.  Do not confuse this with inflation. Rocketing commodity prices are a transfer of wealth to exporters of raw materials. For Europeans at the sharp end, it acts like a tax, leaving less to spend elsewhere. It is deflationary for most of the economy.  If it continues for long, we will slide into recession.  Ukraine turns Putin’s neo-Tsarist empire into the Saudi Arabia of food, controlling 30pc of global wheat exports and 20pc of corn exports. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph 24 February 2022  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/02/24/greater-russia-now-full-spectrum-commodity-superpower-less-vulnerable/   Russian gas exports to Europe through Ukraine jumped almost 38% on Thursday and are expected to increase by another 24% on Friday as the EU finalizes a package of sanctions that largely spared Moscow’s energy industry.  The higher flows are an aw...

 The U.K. 10-year breakeven rate rose to the highest level in more than two and a half decades while the equivalent German one above 2% for the first since 2011.   U.S. five-year peers -- known as Treasury inflation-protected securities, or TIPS, jumped to an all-time high of 3.39%.  The gauges represent the difference between conventional yields and those indexed to inflation, and provide an estimate of the future pace of price increases. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-24/investors-scramble-for-inflation-protection-after-russia-attack

A margin call occurs when the value of an investor’s margin account falls below the broker’s required amount. Brokers may force traders to sell assets, regardless of the market price, to meet the margin call if the trader doesn’t deposit funds. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/margincall.asp Margin Call is a 2011 American financial thriller film.  The principal story takes place over a 24-hour period at a large Wall Street investment bank during the initial stages of the financial crisis of 2007–2008. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_Call

 ”Jag är inte alls säker på att det är inledningen på en omfattande börskrasch”, Handelsbankens aktiestrateg Mattias Sundling Det som konflikten kan påverka i större utsträckning är energipriserna. Under torsdagsmorgonen rusade priset på naturgas med närmare 30 procent. Vid ett skenande pris kan konsekvensen bli en stigande inflation och därmed blir det intressant att se hur centralbankerna agerar, säger han. ”Det kommer säkert att bli spekulationer om att Federal Reserve ska tvingas höja räntan även om det kanske triggar recession, men jag är inte så säker på det. Det kan lika gärna bli så att Fed gör en tidig höjning och sedan tar det lite lugnt för att se hur saker utvecklar sig.” DI 24 februari 2022 https://www.di.se/nyheter/aktieveteranen-manar-till-lugn/ Inflation är när löner och priset stiger. Men höja energipriser, förorsakade av ryssar eller Opec, är som en skatt. Om priserna stiger med sex procent, varav två procent beror på energipriserna, är inflationen fyra procent. E...

 I denna nya intressesfär skulle inte bara ligga huvudstäder i vår närhet som Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius och Warszawa liksom andra klassiska europeiska huvudstäder som Prag, Bratislava, Budapest, Wien, Bukarest och Sofia, utan också Helsingfors, Stockholm, Oslo och Köpenhamn. Gunnar Hökmark SvD 23 februari 2022 https://www.svd.se/statsministern-kringskar-sveriges-sakerhet Kan dom inte bättre - Anna Kinberg Batra och Gunnar Hökmark? Deras artikel på DN.se Debatt 7 maj 2014 är pinsamt dålig. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2014/05/kan-dom-inte-battre-anna-kinberg-batra.html

Men enligt Fraser Perring och Viceroy Research är SBB ett luftslott.  https://www.di.se/nyheter/batljan-vs-blankarna-blankarfirmans-facit-talar-mot-sbb/ När fjärde kvartalet 2021 rapporterades på onsdagen, uppvisar SBB som väntat ett nytt rekordresultat. Men av vinsten 13,7 miljarder före skatt kommer hela 9,9 miljarder kronor från värdeförändringar på fastigheterna.  Enligt kvartalsrapporten hade SBB vid årsskiftet ett totalt fastighetsvärde på 149 miljarder, att jämföra med 90 miljarder i fjol. Av koncernens balansräkning framgår att skuldsättningen är relativt hög: lång- och kortfristiga skulder är totalt 111 miljarder kronor, och därtill finns en hybridobligation på 18 miljarder – ett lån som kan redovisas som eget kapital.  Johan Hellekant SvD 23 februari 2022 https://www.svd.se/berg-och-dalbana-for-200000-aktieagare-i-sbb

Rishi Sunakwas born in Southampton, on England’s south coast, to parents of Indian origin who emigrated to the U.K. from east Africa in the 1960s. But in other ways, he is also a typical Tory. The son of a pharmacist and a doctor, he was educated at one of England’s most renowned schools, Winchester, and then Oxford.   He spent three years at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and later gained an MBA from Stanford in California, where he met his wife Akshata Murthy, the daughter of Indian billionaire, Infosys Ltd. co-founder Narayana Murthy.   For another three years or so, Sunak worked at billionaire activist hedge fund manager Chris Hohn’s TCI Fund Management, before moving to join his TCI colleague Patrick Degorce’s hedge fund Theleme Partners.   https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-08/rishi-sunak-britain-s-economic-jedi-who-could-be-prime-minister  

 Even after the Archduke’s assassination, stock markets sailed blithely on as if nothing of significance had happened. It wasn’t until the troops were actually mobilised that the panic set in. In the Great Illusion, a hugely influential book in the run-up to the First World War, the British journalist Norman Angell argued that the economic costs of war in Europe were so great that nobody could possibly hope to gain by starting one, and therefore wouldn’t.  Jeremy Warner 18 February 2022 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/18/whiff-1914-crisis-ukraine/ The outbreak of World War I in Europe forced the NYSE to shut its doors on July 31, 1914, after large numbers of foreign investors began selling their holdings in hopes of raising money for the war effort. All of the world’s financial markets followed suit and closed their doors by August 1. Trading of stocks didn’t resume until December 12, 1914, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its worst percentage drop (24.3...

Samtidigt konstaterar hon att finns förutsättningar för en stark börsutveckling längre fram om den geopolitiska oron avtar. – När oron har lagt sig brukar börsen fokusera på tillståndet i ekonomin. Och konjunkturen är fortsatt stark. Jag tycker inte man ska ta några förhastade beslut när det stormar, säger Seyran Naib.  SvD 23 February 2022 https://www.svd.se/stigande-finansoro-vi-borde-fa-en-rekyl A Stock Correction Doesn't Mean the Market Was Wrong A 10% decline from the previous high is common and doesn’t portend catastrophe. One worrying sign would be if financial conditions were tight, but they’re not. Given the run that stocks have had, more than doubling from the pandemic-era low in March 2020 to early in January, you can’t fault investors for selling first and asking questions later. But this correction should be welcomed because it shows that after a prolonged period when it seemed stocks only rose, investors are no longer on the same side, which is a healthy sign. Bloombe...

For almost a half-century, value-investing icon Jeremy Grantham has been calling market bubbles. Now, he says U.S. stocks are in a “super bubble,” only the fourth in history, and poised to collapse. Schatzker: If you are right and stocks are in a multi-sigma deviation from the statistical trend, tell me what happens. The S&P 500 peaked at almost 4800 points. What is the bottom? Grantham: The trend line, being slightly generous, is 2500. And most of the great bubbles, the super bubbles go below trend and stay there for quite a while. Mish: There's much more in the interview. The above only covers 9 of 37 minutes. Watch the video in entirety. The second favor you can do for yourself is read Jeremy Grantham's GMO Viewpoint: Let the Wild Rumpus Begin. You will haver to register to see it, but it will be worth it.  The third favor you can do for yourself is start paying attention to John Hussman. Yes, I know, many consider him to be a washed up permabear. Well, evaluations matte...

He will be 70 in October He is not Blofeld, no geopolitical mastermind, but nor is he insane.  He is a remnant of the last true Soviet generation, unable to come to terms with the end of his old world, unwilling to understand the new.  Yet that old world bequeathed him both nuclear weapons and an assumption that Russia must be a global power or it is nothing, so we need to try and understand his view of the world, even as we battle it. Mark Galeotti Telegraph 23 February 2022 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/23/putin-mad-brilliant-somewhere/ Books We Need to Talk About Putin : How The West Gets Him Wrong by Mark Galeotti A Short History of Russia by Mark Galeotti  

Since it is hard to know where to start on this one, we might as well begin with Germany, whose supposed cancellation of Nord Stream 2 is probably the most potent weapon the West can muster against Putin’s tsarist pretensions. But abandonment of Nord Stream 2 will certainly give the Russian president some pause for thought as he weighs a further escalation in hostilities. It nevertheless beggars belief that Germany should have rendered itself so hopelessly impotent against Putin’s ambitions by dint of its reliance on Russian gas. Germany’s former chancellor, Angela Merkel, an East German by origin with an apparent soft spot for the Russian bear, should take much of the blame. The decision to close down Germany’s remaining nuclear power capacity, rather than beef it up, could scarcely have been more shortsighted or dangerous. The European Union’s hubristic expansion eastwards – enthusiastically backed by successive UK governments, by the way – meanwhile incubated a deep-seated sense of ...

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” Milton Friedman made this remark in 1963. At that time, few macroeconomists agreed with him. Twenty years later a high proportion did. Twenty years after that, again most did not.  Today, almost another two decades later, economists have to take money seriously again Tim Congdon, a well-known monetarist, had argued this before me.  According to the Center for Financial Stability, “Divisia M4” (an index that weights the components by their role in transactions) grew by 30 per cent in the year to July 2020, almost three times as fast as in any similar period since 1967.  Martin Wolf 22 February 2022 https://www.ft.com/content/0cd1d666-8842-4c82-8344-07c4e433a408   Banks create money when they lend. They also create money when they buy coffee machines  Frances Coppola 3 September 2021 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/09/banks-create-money-when-they-lend-they.html    Ingen har väl hävdat at...

– Jag säger inte att det blir stagflation, men... säger Klas Eklund. Kristin Magnusson Bernard, som är vd för Första AP-fonden, påpekar att stagflation ”är ett starkt ord”. – Det handlar om en hög och ihållande inflation och en långvarigt fallande BNP och det är vi inte på väg emot. Men börserna påverkas av rädslan för den typen av situation, säger hon. Birgitta Forsberg SvD 23 februari 2022 https://www.svd.se/borserna-paverkas-av-radslan-for-stagflation  

There is no single interest rate that can possibly serve Greece, Italy, Germany, and France, let along all 19 countries in the Eurozone.  The Target 2 payment system that treats all debt alike exacerbates the problem.  Mish 22 February 2022 https://mishtalk.com/economics/how-can-a-single-interest-rate-serve-19-widely-varying-eurozone-economies  Highly Recommended.

 Moscow’s military forces threaten Ukraine, but the bigger prize is restoration of Russia’s sphere of influence stretching through Eastern Europe  The Russian leader is now seeking to create a buffer zone around his country, as it had in Soviet times, Ms. Sarotte said, and muscle Moscow’s way back to the superpower table alongside the U.S. “Although I think that Western diplomacy was arrogant and incompetent in the 1990s, and we’re paying the price now, that is not a reason for Putin to put himself in a posture that makes other people think he’s about to launch a war,” said Rodric Braithwaite, who was British ambassador to Moscow when the Soviet Union collapsed. Yet in 1994, Russia joined with the U.S. and U.K. in committing “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and “to refrain from the threat or use of force” against it, a security guarantee that helped persuade Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons. Stephen Fidler Wall Street Jour...

Phoenix recorded the highest rate of home-price growth in the country in December, according to the Case-Shiller report, with a 32.5% year-over-year increase.  As with the month prior, two Florida cities closely followed: Tampa with a 29.4% gain and Miami with a 27.3% rise. MarketWatch 22 February 2022 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coming-up-s-p-case-shiller-and-fhfa-home-price-indexes-11645537850

 Det fanns gott om rykten om att raset berodde på att en eller flera prisokänsliga hedgefonder som blankat aktien. Nu vet vi att det stämmer då fonden Viceroy på förmiddagen gått ut med en mycket negativ analys och samtidigt meddelat att aktien blankats.     https://www.di.se/nyheter/sbb-aktien-borjar-se-billig-ut-om-man-tror-pa-vardena/

The dangerous confrontation between Brussels and Warsaw over rule of law could deepen after a European court ruling last week FT 21 February 2022 https://www.ft.com/content/949b4fd2-90cd-44e1-a3b0-1d61a4aacc9e

 Zealandia was originally part of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, which was formed about 550 million years ago and essentially lumped together all the land in the southern hemisphere.  It occupied a corner on the eastern side, where it bordered several others, including half of West Antarctica and all of eastern Australia Another mystery is exactly when Zealandia ended up underwater – and whether it has ever, in fact, consisted of dry land. The parts that are currently above sea level are ridges that formed as the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates crumpled together. Tulloch says opinion is split as to whether it was always submerged apart from a few small islands, or once entirely dry land.   https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210205-the-last-secrets-of-the-worlds-lost-continent    

 I would estimate the probability of a comfortable soft landing for the economy and markets over the next 12 months at 10 per cent, well below three other macroeconomic scenarios.  Fed that is forced into slamming on the policy brakes in response to persistently high inflation (40 per cent probability).  A third scenario is stagflation (20 per cent), the most worrisome outcome for livelihoods, financial stability and policy effectiveness. Mohamed El-Erian FT 21 February 2022 https://www.ft.com/content/71982abb-a79d-4fb6-8f62-49ec5e9679c5 The Federal Reserve seems to be achieving the fabled soft landing Tim Duy Bloomberg 17 april 2019  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-federal-reserve-seems-to-be.html    “Stagflation” remains a word not uttered in the polite company of the financial world. "Many of today's investors were still in diapers (blöjbarn) during the great stagflation of the 1970s. Those who weren't will never forget the darkest per...

I lågkonjunkturer bör räntepolitiken stimulera ekonomin. Det kan kräva en realränta väsentligt under den neutrala räntan. Men om både den och inflationen är låg, är detta svårt att få till stånd. Skälet är att kraftigt negativa nominella räntor då skulle behövas. Ekonomer brukar tala om den neutrala räntan. Med det menas den realränta, alltså skillnaden mellan nominell ränta och inflation, som är förenlig med ett normalt resursutnyttjande och en stabil inflation. Enligt en rad studier har den neutrala räntan i olika länder under de senaste decennierna sjunkit från kanske 4 till mellan 0 och 1 procent. Eftersom kapitalmarknaden är internationell, måste fallet förklaras av utvecklingen i världsekonomin: globalt tycks benägenheten att spara ha stigit, medan benägenheten att investera minskat. Lars Calmfors DN 21 februari 2022 https://www.dn.se/ledare/lars-calmfors-nu-ar-ratt-tid-att-overvaga-en-hojning-av-inflationsmalet/ Did inflation targeting fail? Martin Wolf, Financial Times, May 5 2...

Last year the value of the average house went up by more than the average worker earned.  But if this fantastic increase in wealth and consumption possibilities for homeowners and their children does not correspond to the generation of real wealth for society as a whole, where does it come from?  The answer is that there is a redistribution from those who do not own property to those who do.  Admittedly, this transfer is not immediately obvious. After all, those people who do not own property do not suffer a loss of capital value. House price inflation has been one of the greatest sources of inequality in this country. Bearing in mind the differing prevalence of homeownership among different demographic groups and the different average values of the homes owned, it redistributes wealth from poorer to richer, from younger to older and from the rest of the country to London and the South East. It is difficult to argue that this redistribution has been from the undeserving t...

The last round of QE in Britain was simply stupid,” said Professor Tim Congdon from the Institute of International Monetary Research. https://mv-pt.org / The authors of this week’s 24th Geneva Report - Debt: The Eye of the Storm - argue nothing has really changed. The illustrious OECD-led group says the disinflationary glut of excess global savings is not going away and the same structural forces will reassert themselves once the pandemic is over. https://voxeu.org/article/debt-eye-storm Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph 18 February 2022 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/02/18/rising-recession-risk-us-may-soon-kill-global-inflation/ MV=PT is true, but how to use it? https://www.ft.com/content/fc1fcb3a-090e-11de-b8b0-0000779fd2ac

När fallande energipriserna tas bort från inflationsekvationen steg KPIF till 2,5 procent vilket var det högsta utfallet på 13 år. ”Det var en verklig kalldusch. Det är en betydligt högre inflation än vad vi och de flesta andra hade räknat med”, säger Andreas Wallström, prognoschef på Swedbank. DI 18 februari 2022 https://www.di.se/nyheter/historisk-inflationschock-tog-experterna-pa-sangen/   Sparprofilerna manar till lugn i börsraset, och varnar för risken att sälja Vårt huvudscenario är fortfarande att detta är en tillfällig marknadsoro”, säger Maria Landeborn, seniorstrateg på Danske Bank. DI 14 februari 2022 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2022/02/sparprofilerna-manar-till-lugn-i.html

For half a century, Höfer has travelled the world creating inscrutable images of empty museums, libraries, cathedrals, grand cafés and theatres FT 19 February 2022 https://www.ft.com/content/95d06e48-6bae-4452-914a-9e639b6784f0

Gerhard Schröder är en av de stora regeringscheferna i tysk efterkrigshistoria och har en ställning i tysk socialdemokrati som liknar Göran Perssons i svensk.  Efter ett 16 år långt reformstopp under Helmut Kohl vann Schröder 1998 och lyckades under sina sju år i expressfart modernisera den tyska arbetsmarknaden och skattesystemet. Han var stenhård mot partiets vänsterflank och gjorde saker som ingen dittills hade vågat. Ledare PM Nilsson DI 20 februari 2022 https://www.di.se/ledare/det-tyska-tillstandet/ Den dramatiska nedgången för SPD började med Gerhard Schröder och hans så kallade Harzreformer 2003, ett i grunden nyliberalt reformpaket för låglönemarknader och kraftig begränsning av arbetslöshetsförsäkringen Den tyska socialdemokratins öde är en del av ett europeiskt drama. Det tycks som om socialdemokratins tid runnit ut.  Carl Tham Dagens Arena 29 november 2018 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2018/11/caro-tham-om-tyskland-och.html

By approving an unprecedentedly large loan to Argentina in mid-2018, despite the country's failure to meet basic borrowing conditions, the International Monetary Fund committed a major blunder.  Fortunately, blunders of that magnitude are uncommon. The only comparable misjudgment was the Fund’s $30 billion loan to the Greek government in 2010 (the largest-ever IMF loan at the time), when it was plain as a pikestaff that Greece was headed for a sovereign default, which came in 2012.  The IMF hid behind its preferred creditor status and avoided a haircut on that occasion. It must not do so this time.  Willem H. Buiter Project Syndicate 16 February 2022 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/imf-argentina-blunder-calls-for-debt-restructuring-by-willem-h-buiter-2022-02 Questions may also be asked about the IMF’s record-breaking rescue package for Argentina, with which its outgoing director Christine Lagarde was closely associated. F T 12 August 2019 https://englundmacro...

Professional historians rarely have the funds (or the inclination) to engage in speculation themselves. (My boyhood hero, the great English diplomatic historian A.J.P. Taylor, was a financial dunce who fared disastrously in the 1970s inflation.)  They also tend to study the emperors, the kings and queens, the presidents and prime ministers, rather than the bankers and brokers. Writing the histories of some of the great German-Jewish banking dynasties, the Rothschilds and the Warburgs, I learned to see history from a different vantage point.  The story of how the Rothschild brothers profited from early news of the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo is the stuff of legend The reality is that Napoleon’s defeat, just 100 days after his return from exile on the island of Elba, was not at all what Nathan Rothschild had anticipated.  When the news of Bonaparte’s defeat reached the Rothschild offices in St Swithin’s Lane in London — delivered by a courier, not the carrier pigeon o...

In the old days, you could blame your stockbroker or fund manager for losing your money. Now that your stockbroker is your phone and your fund manager is an index, it’s a lot harder to point your finger at somebody else. If you’re left with no one to blame but yourself, the obvious way out is denial—especially at times like this, with stocks down about 8% so far in 2022. Individual investors specialize in denial. So do professionals. That’s because of cognitive dissonance, the tension that arises when beliefs and reality collide. You believe you were right to buy that stock; now it’s down 75%, suggesting you might have been mistaken.  Let’s visit John Hussman, portfolio manager of the Hussman Strategic Growth Fund, with roughly $400 million in assets. The fund is up 10% this year, outperforming the S&P 500 by 18 percentage points—but trailed the market in nine of the previous 10 years, according to Morningstar. Jason Zweig WSJ 18 February 2022   https://www.wsj.com/article...

Det så kallade PKK-spåret är ett av de mest konfliktfyllda och omskrivna spåren i Palmemordsutredningen. Trots att spåret och utredningen av det varit så omdiskuterat så har själva sakinnehållet i spåret – indicierna det byggde på – i stort varit okänt för allmänheten. I flera fall har ofullständig eller direkt felaktig information om PKK-spåret lämnats till allmänheten – bland annat av den så kallade Granskningskommissionen. Något som sannolikt bidragit till spridningen av konspirationsteorier kring Palmeutredningen och PKK-spåret samt idéer om en ”mörkläggning” från polisen sida. Däremot har existens av själva promemorian varit känd. Att den fanns framkom nämligen vid processen mot Christer Pettersson.  Petterssons advokater hade begärt att Säkerhetspolisens PKK-expert Jan-Henrik Barrling skulle få vittna om vad SÄPO:s utredning kommit fram till gällande vad som hänt runt mordplatsen. Åklagarsidan motsatte sig dock detta med motiveringen att Barrling endast kunde lämna andrahands...

The Saturday Essay As markets plunged, Jerome Powell and his colleagues vastly expanded the reach of the central bank, with implications that will be felt for years to come  Over the week of March 16, markets experienced an enormous shock to what investors refer to as liquidity, a catchall term for the cost of quickly converting an asset into cash. Powell led his colleagues to slash interest rates to zero at a second emergency meeting in as many weeks. They were offering nearly unlimited cheap debt to keep the wheels of finance turning, and when that didn’t help, the Fed began purchasing massive quantities of government debt outright. But none of the Fed’s actions were having their intended effect. Investors dumped whatever they could, including ostensibly “risk-free” U.S. Treasury securities. The Dow tumbled as Mr. Ackman spoke, dropping as much as 2,000 points and triggering a marketwide 15-minute trading halt shortly before 1 p.m., one of several that month. By week’s end, the D...

Ekots Lördagsintervju 12 februari 2022 https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/ar-inflationen-overgaende-stefan-ingves     “Moderatskam. Känslan som infinner sig när man ser hur olika aktiva moderater uppför sig i sociala medier, och man inser att man någon gång i livet lagt sin röst på partiet.” https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2022/02/moderatskam-kanslan-som-infinner-sig.html     Anders Borg; Avveckla ränteavdragen och återinför en rimlig fastighetsskatt Att avveckla ränteavdragen och  återinföra en rimlig fastighetsskatt vore på sin plats. Anders Borg, SvD 2 november 2017 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2017/11/anders-borg-avveckla-ranteavdragen-och.html     ”Slopandet av fastighetsskatten ter sig i efterhand som ett av de mest korkade ekonomisk-politiska beslut som fattats.” Klas Eklund, Dagens Industri 2 juli 2013 https://www.internetional.se/fastighetsskatten.htm#0713iefterhand    

 De är helt enkelt fiskmåsar – skriker högt och flaxar med vingarna, är aggressiva, störiga, bajsar överallt och har väldigt små hjärnor, samt saknar all form av relevant bildning. Den så kallade fiskmåshögern. https://cornucopia.se/2022/02/fredagsmys-moderatskammen-och-politiker-i-sociala-medier/

CNBC 17 February 2022 https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/17/cathie-wood-says-her-innovation-stocks-are-way-undervalued-and-recent-fund-losses-temporary.html   Ark Investment Management’s flagship Innovation ETF has fallen roughly 46% from its record high in February 2021 Bloomberg 8 January 2022 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2022/01/ark-investment-managements-flagship.html    

Harry Dent har prickat rätt förr i sina förutsägelser: finansbubblan i Japan 1989, dotcom-bubblan på 00-talet. Samtidigt har han fått massiv kritik för sina undergångsprofetior. Vid det här laget har Dent ropat vargen kommer om ekonomiska kollapser så många gånger att en del av hans branschkollegor himlar med ögonen. Aftonbladet 13 februari 2022 https://www.aftonbladet.se/minekonomi/a/0Gzyj0/harry-dent-varnar-for-en-borskrasch   Book The Great Depression Ahead: How to Prosper in the Crash Following the Greatest Boom in History Hardcover – January 6, 2009  

I’m guessing Kennan would see the west’s arming of Ukraine as a canny way to raise Russia’s price of invasion. His analysis implies that Putin might take another bite out of Ukraine, but not attempt long-term occupation. Kennan cautioned Washington against seeking to humiliate the Kremlin.  Simon Kuper 17 February 2022 https://www.ft.com/content/c74c2f95-ed96-423c-b1c4-595d47d39cdf    The first log was the ill-considered decision by the U.S. in the 1990s to expand NATO after — indeed, despite — the collapse of the Soviet Union. And the second and far bigger log is how Putin cynically exploited NATO’s expansion closer to Russia’s borders to rally Russians to his side to cover for his huge failure of leadership. Thomas L. Friedman New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/opinion/putin-ukraine-nato.html  

Dow jumps nearly 400 points as Russia-Ukraine tensions ease  https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-stock-futures-jump-on-report-some-russian-troops-are-heading-back-to-base-11644914890   The Army Stars - Happy days are here again! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h_GChgSv_A

English speakers do not realize how lucky they are. There's no reason to feel guilty about this, and it’s still quite possible to be unlucky in many other ways at the same time. It’s just a fact.  Christine Lagarde has to speak English, and I don't have to practice my French or listen to a simultaneous translation. John Authers Bloomberg 15 February 2022 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-15/the-ukraine-crisis-comes-amid-falling-consumer-sentiment-impacting-risk

Vårt huvudscenario är fortfarande att detta är en tillfällig marknadsoro”, säger Maria Landeborn, seniorstrateg på Danske Bank. Joakim Bornold, som är sparekonom på Söderberg & Partners: Om vi hamnar i ett läge där börsen faller ännu mer på grund av en Ukraina-kris så skulle jag snarare se det som ett köptillfälle, baserat på att det blir stort fokus på något som faktiskt inte har så stor ekonomisk påverkan.” Maria Landeborn på Danske Bank håller med om man måste komma ihåg att ekonomin i grund och botten mår bra, men att marknaden har haft svårt att bedöma det geopolitiska hotet vid sidan av frågorna om den amerikanska penningpolitiken och inflation.  DI 14 februari 2022 https://www.di.se/nyheter/sparexperterna-om-borsraset-sa-ska-du-gora-nu/  

 för alla aktie- och indexderivat fram till slutet av måndagen.  DI 14 februari 2022, 10:52 https://www.di.se/live/stockholmsborsen-pakallar-stressade-marknadsforhallanden/

when then-US Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would expand “not one inch eastward.”  In September of that year, as part of the Two Plus Four Agreement that permitted German reunification, the Soviets consented only to NATO membership for Germany. Robert Gates, who became CIA director the following year, admitted that the Russians were “misled.”  As a result, while Leningrad was 1,200 miles (1,931 kilometers) from NATO’s eastern edge at the end of the Cold War, St. Petersburg is now less than 100 miles away.  Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister, Project Syndicate 4 February 2022 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/russia-west-standoff-over-ukraine-nato-by-shlomo-ben-ami-2022-02   Gränsen mellan EU och Ryssland går mitt igenom staden Narva Här har vi en bild då det senast begav sig där för oss. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2015/01/nato-eller-nordic-battle-group-vid-narva.html An important compo...

which maintains that every culture is of equal worth.  It is, for example, the idea implicit in multiculturalism and it helps explain how first political correctness and, more recently, “woke” ideas have managed to migrate into wider society. Suffice to say the idea that every culture is of equal worth is a nonsense. Yet if you believe that to be true, it is impossible to appreciate what makes the Anglosphere so exceptional.  Indeed, the only thing the Left sees as exceptional about the Anglosphere is its wickedness, source of the world’s original sins – slavery, imperialism and free market capitalism. Nowhere is the Left’s woke agenda more destructive than in the United States. Douglas Carswell Member of Parliament for the UK Independence Party Telegraph 13 February 2022 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/13/woke-left-destroying-anglosphere/

Farmers in both Portugal and Spain, who are growing produce for all of Europe, are worried that their crops for this season will be ruined. Neighboring Portugal has also seen little rain since last October. By the end of January, 45% of the country was enduring “severe” or “extreme” drought conditions Scientists estimate that Portugal will see a drop in average annual rainfall of 20% to 40% by the end of the century. Bloomberg 13 February 2022     China possesses 20% of the world’s population but only 7% of its fresh water https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/12/china-possesses-20-of-worlds-population.html

The squabbling over whether Modern Monetary Theory is a Copernican revolution for public policy or a load of nonsense hasn’t been very enlightening. The prevailing sentiment in both camps — “You just don’t get it” — is a declaration of faith that hardly inspires confidence in economics as a science. Many years ago, at the height of policy makers’ interest in “monetarism,” I worked in the U.K. Treasury, helping produce short-term forecasts of the money supply. The issuer of a currency - ett land med en egen valuta - can issue as much as it likes. The only constraint, says MMT, is the capacity of the economy to meet demand. If the government spends too much, the excess of demand will cause inflation. This is up to this point, not really at odds with orthodox macroeconomics. Congress that generally struggles to do anything, never mind execute a demanding new fiscal policy with foresight and technocratic exactitude.   But, as I say, their ideas are really interesting. Clive Crook ...

While some in the West are showing signs of accepting today’s harsh realities, others argue that any willingness to reach an agreement with Putin would be equivalent to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany at Munich.  This is incorrect. Preventing a war is the best thing that the US and its allies can do to preserve Ukraine’s well-being, if not the ideal of full independence.  Nancy Qian Project Syndicate 10 February 2022 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ukraine-russia-has-stronger-interest-than-west-by-nancy-qian-1-2022-02  

Kaliningrads län slår in en kil mellan Polen och Litauen och har ingen egen landförbindelse med Ryssland. DN 13 februari 2022 https://www.dn.se/varlden/rysslands-hot-har-satt-ljuset-pa-exklaven-kaliningrad-knappt-30-landmil-fran-sveriges-kust/ Genom universitetet, grundat 1544, blev Königsberg ett andligt centrum; här verkade Immanuel Kant 1755-96 http://www.nejtillemu.com/kaliningrad.htm Långt inne på polskt territorium fanns en tysk enklav: Danzig!  Angreppet på Polen motiverade Hitler med att det bodde många tyskar i västra Polen och att Tyskland hade en historisk rätt till Danzig-området. I augusti 1939 delades Polen mellan Sovjetunionen och Tyskland (den s.k. Molotov – Ribbentrop-pakten). Kurt Morell Bohuslänningen 7 december 2021 https://www.bohuslaningen.se/asikt/insandare/sparen-forskracker.60bcc047-c832-49a2-ad62-ab7e98e26457  

Genom att sträcka ut handen till de demokratiska krafterna där gör EU indirekt samma tjänst åt Ryssland. Det är inte civilisationskamp utan brobyggnad. Ett turkiskt EU-medlemskap vore dödsstöten för al-Qaida i Europa EU är en fantastisk uppfinning.  Signerat Niklas Ekdahl, pol red DN 6/12 2004 http://www.nejtillemu.com/dn.htm#allaharstor

Stefan Ingves beskedet att reporäntan ligger kvar på noll procent och att en första höjning kommer först 2024. En första räntehöjning ligger enligt Riksbankens prognos två år bort, vilket en del bedömare tycker är lite väl optimistiskt.  SEB tror på en första höjning 2023. Medlemmar av Di:s skuggdirektion vill höja redan i höst.  DI ledare Henrik Westman 11 februari 2022 https://www.di.se/ledare/rimligt-att-halla-fast-vid-nollranta/ Riksbanken har is i magen Riksbankschefen Stefan Ingves och hans kollegor ser det som en engångsföreteelse. Förklaringen till den höga inflationen finns i skenande elräkningar och dyrare diesel och bensin. Carl Johan von Seth DN 10 februari 2022 https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/carl-johan-von-seth-riksbanken-har-is-i-magen-nar-det-talas-om-rantehojningar-overallt-i-varlden/ Placerarna sliter sitt hår. Hur kan Stefan Ingves vara så lugn? Riksbankschefen räknar med att nollräntan består till hösten 2024. Nils Åkesson DI 14 februari 2022 https://www.di.se/an...

Interest rates—the “price of money”—have been unusually low for most of this century, particularly since the 2008 crisis but going back to Greenspan’s era. The wisest people I know differ on exactly why. There’s no doubt that near-zero, zero, and below-zero interest rates changed the incentive calculations and decisions from what they were a mere 30 years ago. You can’t look at policies or almost anything else prior to the early 2000s as a standard for today.  The incentives of low interest rates have literally screwed (that’s a technical economic term) things up. Capital is cheap because the world is awash in it. This is historically extraordinarily unusual. Modern banking and capital markets arose because capital was so scarce. We needed mechanisms to allocate it efficiently. The post-World War II monetary regime made the US dollar the “global reserve currency.” This has been called the “exorbitant privilege” allowing the US to both borrow and lend in its own currency. But in som...

Robert Shiller, a finance professor at Yale University, who won a Nobel Prize in economics in 2013, measures how expensive stocks are by taking the price of the S&P 500 index, dividing by the average of its past 10 years of earnings and adjusting both the price and the earnings for inflation. The gauge is known as the cyclically adjusted price/earnings ratio, or CAPE Today, at a CAPE of 37.1 times adjusted earnings, stocks are significantly above their early record of 32.6 in September 1929 and not far from their all-time high of 44.2 in December 1999.  The respected investor Jeremy Grantham recently wrote that U.S. stocks and other assets are so overpriced that they constitute a “superbubble,” setting up “the largest potential markdown of perceived wealth in U.S. history.” https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2022/01/jeremy-grantham-says-goldilocks-era-of.html “The problem is, we don’t know,” says Prof. Shiller with a dry laugh. Jason Zweig WSJ 11 Feb.  2022 https://www.wsj....

 Yield-starved investors chased stocks to valuations beyond the 1929 and 2000 extremes. That speculation front-loaded more than a decade of future market gains into the present.  Those gains are now behind us, embedded in breathtaking multiples. If history is any guide, a collapse in valuations is likely to return those gains to the future. John P. Hussman,  February 2022 https://www.hussmanfunds.com/comment/mc220210/

Förväntningar om stramare penningpolitik från ECB har väckt liv i ett gammalt spöke. Ränteskillnaderna – så kallade spreadar – mellan olika euroländer har åter börjat vidgas. I skottlinjen står främst Grekland och Italien. Kristin Magnusson Bernard, vd för Första AP-fonden, kallar det för själva ”smärtpunkten i eurokonstruktionen”. ”Hur bedriver man en penningpolitik i länder som är så olika? Svaret har skiftat över tid. När jag jobbade på ECB 2007 var man ganska obekymrad över detta. Underlaget till beslutsfattarna utgick från hela valutaunionen och man försökte föra en politik som skulle bli bra för genomsnittet”, säger hon i Di-podden Makrorådet. Under finanskrisen hotade växande spreadar att spräcka valutasamarbetet.”När jag var tillbaka på ECB 2014 fanns en större insikt om att förutsättningar är olika för olika länder.” https://etidning.di.se/p/dagens-industri/2022-02-11/a/makroradet-hojning-fran-ecb-drojer/2371/496465/26232049 Kristin Magnusson Bernard har jobbat på IMF, ECB och...

Vänner För varje dag som går med nollränta i stora delar av världen ökar belåningen och svårigheten att höja räntan utan stora konsekvenser.  Är det någon som vet hur exitplanen ser ut? Rolf Englund på Facebook 10 februari 2021   John Authers https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-11/latest-inflation-data-make-an-unhappy-picture-provoking-drama-across-markets In his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, John Maynard Keynes talked of the euthanasia of the rentier where investors relying on interest income would struggle to survive as rates fall.   https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2020/11/in-his-general-theory-of-employment.html

Med nästan perfekt timing har en av de större svenska nätmäklarna precis lanserat en svensk fastighetsfond.  Man kan ju ta sig en rejäl funderare på hur svenska högbelånade fastighetsbolag, med hög hävstång, belåning och värderingar på fastigheter baserade på permanenta krisräntor ska vara ett investeringscase nu när marknadsräntorna sticker iväg? Jag kan killgissa att läget nu antagligen är värre än det var runt ca 1989  Cornucopia 10 februari 2022 https://cornucopia.se/2022/02/hur-ska-fastighetsaktierna-klara-sig-nar-rantorna-stiger/  

The current shift higher has been driven by real yields — that is nominal yields minus inflation — because there is a fundamental rethink of how high the price gains will be in the next few years. TIPS — that is, 10-year U.S inflation-protected Treasury bonds — have gained 60 basis points this year already.  This shows that the market believes central banks have come around too late to control inflation.  Marcus Ashworth Bloomberg 10 February 2022 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-10/the-bond-market-s-job-is-to-warn-about-inflation-but-qe-got-in-the-way

 Det är en ny toppnotering för konsumentprisindex under de senaste fyra decennierna och en skarpare uppgång än analytikerkåren hade väntat sig. DI 10 februari 2022 https://www.di.se/analys/ny-inflationssmocka-nu-maste-powell-fram-med-en-rejal-slagga/ U.S. Inflation Accelerates to 40-Year High  https://www.wsj.com/articles/us-inflation-consumer-price-index-january-2022-11644452274 U.S. Treasury yields surged https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-10/u-s-inflation-charges-higher-with-larger-than-forecast-gain   Treasury Yields Hit 2% After Inflation Data  https://www.wsj.com/articles/treasury-yields-climb-after-inflation-data-release-11644502206

After a trip to Washington for discussions with US President Joe Biden, the German chancellor will follow in the footsteps of French President Emmanuel Macron by visiting Kyiv and Moscow next week for separate meetings with Ukrainian and Russian leaders. Deutsche  Welle 9 February 2022  https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-russia-crisis-olaf-scholz-calls-for-peace-and-patience/a-60716474

Essentially nobody saw the 2008 financial meltdown coming (other than people who predicted many other crises that didn’t happen), but when it did come, there wasn’t much existential angst among economists I talked to.  We’ve long had a theory of banking crises; we just thought that regulations and deposit insurance made an old-fashioned wave of bank runs impossible — which they did, for traditional banks. What few had realized, however, was that much of the modern financial system now involved “shadow banks” that did bank-type business but, because they weren’t marble buildings with rows of tellers, lacked both the regulations and the government guarantees that protected traditional banking.  I consider MMT the cryptocurrency of macroeconomics: It sounds edgy and forward-looking, but when you press its devotees on what exactly is its point, what it can do that you can’t do better using more conventional approaches, the response is a lot of bombast but no clear answer. Paul Kru...

SvT 7 februari 2022 https://www.svtplay.se/video/34139214/ekonomibyran/ekonomibyran-sasong-5-slutfestat

 även om centralbankerna har en tuff retorik kommer de att få svårt att bekämpa en i grunden utbudsdriven inflation med räntehöjningar eftersom det har en alltför stor påverkan på tillväxten. ”Detta är ingen typisk återhämtning, där en ökad efterfrågan överhettar ekonomin, utan en värld formad av utbud, där tillväxten fortsatt är under den potentiella tillväxten”, skriver de. Därför räknar Blackrock med en i slutänden historiskt återhållsam policyrespons från centralbankshåll.  Det kan dock bli skakigt på vägen. Hård centralbanksretorik kan få marknaden att prisa in ännu mer räntehöjningar, vilket ökar risken för marknadsstress.  Exempelvis har redan räntespreaden mellan euroområdets periferi och Tyskland vidgats betydligt på sistone.  DI 9 februari 2022 https://www.di.se/live/blackrock-centralbanker-far-leva-med-hogre-inflation/ Abrupt slowdown in ECB stimulus programme could knock Italian and Greek bonds, investors say Crucially, the sell-off has hit highly-indebte...