I have argued that if we want to get a measure of the size of the Fed’s bail-out, we ought to add up the lending and asset purchases undertaken over the past three years through its alphabet soup of special emergency facilities. This is what my students Nicola Matthews and James Felkerson have done, and you … Read more
Last month, I published a post on the nonsense that is Black Friday sales (No, Black Friday Sales Were Not Up 16% (not even 6%). That evolved into a Washington Post article, Did Black Friday save the season? Beware the retail hype. Today, we learn that many breathless forecasts from NRF to ShopperTrak were so … Read more
First, hat tip to Barry Ritholtz for the articles linked here. I read two of the articles, written on opposite sides of the planet, one after another, and suddenly the dangers confronting us in political instability were much clearer. Back in June I wrote: It used to be that the role of the state in … Read more
They changed the title; but originally the NY Times reported “Euro Zone Agrees to Reinforce Maastricht Rules“. That’s exactly what EA policy makers agreed to last week – not much to bring home.The real shift in policy came from the ECB. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard highlights the ECB’s actions as ensuring some sort of bank profitability, while at … Read more
Summary: As Europe’s governments (and perhaps the US as well) repeat the economic policies of 1929-32, this guest post by Andres Drobny (see bio at the end) warns of the consequences. Government leaders back then did the best they could with the economic theory then available; today’s leaders have no excuse. Contents Smart Guy #1 asks about … Read more
The British decision to veto the proposed new EU treaty is not surprisingly provoking an avalanche of commentary this weekend. Among journalists, at least, there seems to be a consensus that David Cameron committed some kind of major diplomatic blunder. Possibly this is so, but given the difficulties presented by having to take this agreement forward outside the … Read more
There is a fascinating new study coming out of the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. Its titled “$29,000,000,000,000: A Detailed Look at the Fed’s Bail-out by Funding Facility and Recipient” by James Felkerson. The study looks at the lending, guarantees, facilities and spending of the Federal Reserve. The researchers took all of the individual … Read more
OK anytime one criticizes the Fed or Wall Street there will be some push-back by the professionals who serve their masters. (By contrast, Barry Ritholtz understood the argument, see here: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/12/bailout-total-29-616-trillion-dollars/.) My original piece on Friday got picked up by a number of blogs and generated a lot of hostile responses (both here on my website … Read more
Since the global financial crisis began in 2007, Chairman Bernanke has striven to save Wall Street’s biggest banks while concealing his actions from Congress by a thick veil of secrecy. It literally took an act of Congress plus a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Bloomberg to get him to finally release much of the … Read more
Azerbaijan and Turkey have announced plans to construct a pipeline from the South Caucasus across Turkey to carry natural gas from Azerbaijan’s offshore Shah Deniz Two deposit to Southeastern Europe. At first glance, this would seem to leave Nabucco and two other candidate pipeline projects that have already submitted bids, out in the cold. However, … Read more