Category: Monetary Policy

Another piece of the Chinese housing puzzle: Part 2, collapsing without crashing?

28 December, 2010 (12:32) | Bubbles, China, Global news, Housing, Inflation, Monetary Policy, Real estate taxes, Speculation, Taxation |

[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]   By: David A. Smith   Rearranging the Chinese puzzle pieces in light of the new information presented in a solid Telegraph story by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, reported in yesterday’s Part 1, that China’s expansionist monetary policy was designed to keep its economy growing even in the face of a global [...]

Another piece of the Chinese housing puzzle: Part 1, pumping up the inflation

27 December, 2010 (13:03) | Bubbles, China, Global news, Housing, Inflation, Monetary Policy, Real estate taxes, Speculation, Taxation |

By: David A. Smith   Making sense of the Chinese housing economy from a distance is like a tangram – even though every now and then one grasps another puzzle piece, they can be reconfigured endlessly, each time with a different meaning – and that presumes we have hold of all the pieces.   And [...]

Inflation: so it begins

3 November, 2010 (16:06) | Bernanke, Capital markets, Deficits, Global news, Inflation, Monetary Policy, Speculation, US News |

By: David A. Smith   As J. R. R. Tolkien once wrote, so it begins.  As reported in Bloomberg News, there is a stirring behind the Misty Mountains:   Treasury Draws Negative Yield for First Time During TIPS Sale   Negative return – investors are paying to give their money to Treasury for a short [...]

“Mr. President, I told you I would.”

2 September, 2010 (10:53) | Federal Reserve, Global news, Monetary Policy, Politics, Recession, US News |

By: David A. Smith    “Ben!  What are you doing about the economy?  “ “Mr. President, I’m doing what I told you I would.” – not overheard on a non-wiretapped line   “You can’t accuse me of inconsistency.”   You have to forgive Politico for seeing only the politics of the most recent not-rainy-enough pronunciamento [...]