Tag Archives: QE

How Will Ending Quantitative Easing Effect the Markets?

Written by Steven Hansen The Federal Reserve’s FOMC meeting minutes were released earlier this week indicating many (few, majority, most, all?) members were leaning towards terminating some aspects of the current quantitative easing (QE) purchases sooner rather than later. ….A … Continue reading

Posted in Weekly Economic Summary, aa syndication | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Initial Claims Drop 16,000 To Lowest Weekly Level Since 2007, Economists Miss Again

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner Forget the headline numbers. As usual they are misleading. First time unemployment claims actually declined by 16,000 last week and are currently declining at a 5.7% annual rate, staying close to the average year … Continue reading

Posted in Employment, Federal Reserve | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Money Supply Exploded After Fed Purchases Began To Settle

Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The following is an excerpt from The Wall Street Examiner Professional Edition Fed Report published previously. I have been alluding to the fact that once the Fed’s outright MBS purchases began to settle that the … Continue reading

Posted in Federal Reserve, macroeconomics, money | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

What Would It Take to Ignite Inflation?

Written by Gene Balas We see a few signs of budding inflation.  But will it bloom? Survey data point to businesses’ higher costs in recent months.  The key question is whether those cost increases are temporary or persistent, and whether … Continue reading

Posted in Consumer Credit, Consumer Sentiment, ISM Surveys, aa syndication, macroeconomics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Fed: Continuing Down the Path of Desperation

by Erik McCurdy, Promethius Market Insight Editor’s note: This appeared Wednesday 20 June 2012 as the Prometheus Daily Investing Thought on the Global Economic Intersection front page. The Federal Reserve announced today that it will continue to hold short-term interest rates … Continue reading

Posted in Federal Reserve, macroeconomics | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Great Debate©: Does QE Prevent Recession or Cause It?

Brad DeLong maintains that QE is essential to support the economy while solvency issues are being resolved and is the way to avoid a serious deflationary depression. James Grant argues that the liquidity produced by QE, combined with ZIRP (zero interest rate policy), has the result of destroying the the financial integrity of the saver while producing further asset bubbles. He says that the collapse of the new bubbles will create a new recession. Continue reading

Posted in Banking News, Federal Reserve, Great Debate© | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Unconventional Monetary Policy and Central Bank Communications

Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen presents the data which compares the results of Fed policy with counterfactual estimates. Most important effects result from expectations of Fed policy, more so than the actual implementation. Continue reading

Posted in Federal Reserve | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Macro Eurozone risk – we’re all in this together, aren’t we?

Can Germany really hang in there to carry the rest of the EU? Continue reading

Posted in Eurozone | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Savings, Work, Keynes and Policy Realism

Some things are truths, supported by facts. When facts and beliefs are in conflict, which should win? The answer is at the heart of our inability to solve problems. Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

The Government has a Printing Press to Produce U.S. Dollars at Essentially No Cost

We are on the verge of debt deflation taking hold via a housing double dip and negative equity. Commodity prices (reflected in food, energy and clothing), plus health care and education costs are rising in a regressive way. Companies have combated this by trying to prevent cost pressures from feeding through by keeping headcount down. This has effectively meant that lower income households get the bad side of both commodity price inflation and debt/income deflation.
Continue reading

Posted in Banking News, Federal Reserve | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Joe Sixpack Sits in the Economic Dumpster

GDP has been growing, although at an anemic rate. But that hasn’t produced any significant improvement for Joe Sixpack. He is not much improved from the end of the recession. Continue reading

Posted in Weekly Economic Summary | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

QE2 is a Double-Edged Sword

QE2 may not succeed in boosting the U.S. economy because of unattended structural defects. The result may be liquidity leakage creating problems in the rest of the world. Continue reading

Posted in Federal Reserve, Trade Data | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments