Economists debate limits of monetary easing, especially negative interest rates that prompt savers and even banks in Germany to stockpile cash in safes and bank vault. Bank of Japan chief Haruhiko Kuroda sees things differently.
The Swiss central bank is now the eighth largest investor in publicly traded shares of Facebook following the Swiss Central Bank Buying Spree. Supposedly buying shares of corporations makes perfect sense. And the risks are manageable.
Today Fed Chair Janet Yellen gave a speech at the “Designing Resilient Monetary Policy Frameworks for the Future,” symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Her speech was on The Federal Reserve’s Monetary Policy Toolkit: Past, Present, and Future.
The Lidar (Light detection and ranging) systems on self-driving vehicles are big and generally expensive. MIT has a Lidar-on-a-chip solution that will fit on a dime and cost about $10 to manufacture.
The downtrend in Trump’s presidential candidacy is now so prolonged that not even the most ardent Trump supporter can deny it. The decline is all based on silliness. Worse yet, it is self-imposed silliness. Some of the things Trump has...
Business inventories rose 0.2% for the month. Bloomberg Econoday calls this a “favorable position“, noting the “lean 1.39” inventory-to-sales ratio. Let’s investigate the claims with a look at the Econoday comments followed by...
Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that negative interest rates cannot occur naturally, can only occur with government or central bank intervention, have nothing to do with free markets, and must fail eventually.
Every time I do a post on self-driving vehicles, someone chimes it “it will not happen for decades” if ever. My timeline, for the US, remains 2022-2024 and I may very well be not optimistic enough. One 100% guaranteed the measure of...
On July 13, the Fresno Bee reported California’s big pension fund sees flat earnings for a second year. CalPERS still maintains that its long-term track record of 7.5% returns is intact. Is it? Reader W.C Varones sorts it out in his article...
The markets expected the Bank of Japan to unleash lower yields further into negative territory at its Friday policy meeting. Instead, the board voted to keep rates unchanged and to maintain existing monetary base targets.
In a recent GMO commentary on Immigration and Brexit, founder Jeremy Grantham laid out precise reasons why Brexit was a mathematical certainty eventually. Curiously, Grantham thinks Brexit was a bad idea. On the second sentence...
It’s been a while since discussing robots. Here are three new robot stories. Fusion reports Robots Cheaper than a Security Guard. Starship Technology, founded by Skype co-founders introduces local delivery Robots. LiveLeak reports US...
Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy for Saxo Bank says Chinese day traders are what’s behind the limit move up on silver, yesterday. Please consider Chinese Day traders Love Silver — As Long it Behaves.
Deutsche Bank shares have collapsed to lows deep under crisis lows and collapse of Lehman in the Great Financial Crisis. What’s going on? An investigation of Deutsche Bank’s “Passion to Perform” balance sheet provides the clues.
Target2 imbalances in the eurozone continue to mount. The ECB itself now has the third largest negative balance following Italy and Spain. Target2 is a measure of capital flight. Those needing a further explanation of Target2 may...
A Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) report plots out global power markets for the next 25 years. If accurate, solar energy will soon dominate, and electric cars will go mainstream. The forecast states coal and gas are...
I received an email from Jon Hartley, Researcher and Policy Analyst for Real Time Macroeconomics on the differences between JOLTS job openings and his research as discussed in BLS Says Jobs Openings Up; Actually, Openings Falling Fast!.
Today’s employment report shows an increase of 38,000 jobs, well under the Bloomberg Econoday consensus estimate of 158,000 jobs and below the entire consensus range of 110,000 to 219,000.
British citizens seeking yet another reason to vote Brexit, have one in spades. The roots of this reason go back to last year when European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker hatched a 3-year plan to leverage...
