Barclays raising its High Yield total return forecast to 6-8% from 4-6%
- Fund Flow slowing
- Specter of year end Fed policy change
13 minutes ago
Global Macro Channel: Latest Posts
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Global Macro
Weighing the Week Head: Is There a Stop Sign at the Old Market Top?
There is a psychological barrier at market tops. Think about this conundrum: By definition, a former top failed. That is how it got to be a top! A new high is the most bullish thing a market can do. Also by definition, since going higher means reaching and taking out old tops. As market averages [...]
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Global Macro
What If People Lived Forever …
In a New Keynesian DSGE (or a RBC) Infinite-Lived vs. Finite-Lived Agents Jim Hamilton’s discussion of the Mankiw Dorian Gray pill reminded me that we already have the pill, distributed for free to all the residents of a typical DSGE implementation of New Keynesian models. Hence, in these models with agents living forever, economies exhibit tendencies [...]
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Great Leap Forward
Six “Facts” About Our Debt: Corrections to Robert Solow’s Op-Ed
In yesterday’s NYTimes, Nobel winner Robert Solow tackled the US debt debate, proclaiming that while it is a serious issue, many Americans are not aware of the facts. See here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/our-debt-ourselves.html?_r=0 Solow is a “neoclassical synthesis” Keynesian, the type of Keynesian economics that used to be taught in the textbooks. He was also on [...]
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Great Leap Forward
Krugman is Right about Simpson-Bowles: The Buzzards Circle the Fiscal Cliff
In a powerful piece, Paul Krugman blasts Alan Simpson as an ignoramus when it comes to federal government budgets: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/alan-simpson-and-bernie-madoff/?smid=tw-share. He rightly wonders why anyone takes this nutter seriously: “Simpson is, demonstrably, grossly ignorant on precisely the subjects on which he is treated as a guru, not understanding the finances of Social Security, the truth [...]
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Global Macro
Reinventing Government: The 1995 Speeches Announcing The Road to Ruin
Anyone who has worked for a large government or firm knows their tendency to be bureaucratic. Everyone has had the experience of dealing with bureaucratic mentalities, including the volunteer soccer referee who lets power go to his head and becomes an arrogant demigod. Everyone has had to deal with a public clerk or a private [...]
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Global Macro
The World of Wonders: Monetary Magic Applied to Cure America’s Economic Ills
We live in an age of wonders, in which things unforseen — even unimagined — become daily fare for the news, or even remain unremarked. This is the second chapter in this series, attempting to open your eyes to the amazing things taking place. Today we have a guest post by Nathan Lewis looking at [...]
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Global Macro
Ageing and Productivity in Economics
Daniel Hamermesh argues that innovation in economics is slowing, and that allows older economists to stay in the game longer than in the past: Ageing and productivity: Economists and others, by Daniel S. Hamermesh, Vox EU: Is economics still a young person’s game? If not, what is changing? This column argues that although top-level economic research [...]
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Europe
Prepare to Dust Off Those CSAs…BCBS/IOSCO Publish ‘Near Final’ Margin Rules for Non-Cleared Derivatives
On 15 February, 2013, The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (“BCBS”) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (“IOSCO”) published a second consultative paper, representing “near-final” margin requirements for non-centrally cleared derivatives. The BIS/IOSCO proposals focus on 8 key principles, as detailed below. Comments on limited aspects of the consultation paper are sought by 15 March [...]
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Global Macro
Fiscal Papal: Why The Next Pope Should Address Global Debt
The recent resignation of Pope Benedict XVI is the first papal resignation in the last 600 years and ends an eight year term as the head of the Catholic Church. This has set into motion the complex sequence of events to elect the next leader of one of the wealthiest and most powerful organizations on [...]
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Global Macro
Sequester in the Time of ZLB
In several weeks, absent action by policymakers, the Federal government will begin implementing $85 billion worth of across-the-board cuts during FY2013 (i.e., in the months before October). [0] According to one narrative, each dollar of spending previously devoted to patrolling the South China Sea and monitoring tornadoes and winter storms will be released to the private [...]
