Veren of Lood biedt u op zondag wekelijks een inkijkje in (minstens) 10 belangrijke of informatieve artikelen en interviews die de voorafgaande 7 dagen op economisch terrein verschenen op onafhankelijke sites.

De kop is de link naar het oorspronkelijke artikel, waarvan de samenvatting of de eerste (twee) alinea’s hier gegeven zijn.

Sinds begin december 2015 nemen we ook een paar extra links op naar artikelen die minder specialistische kennis vereisen. Deze met *** gemerkte artikelen zijn ons inziens ook interessant voor lezers met weinig basiskennis van economie.

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***46 Months Of Accelerating Deflation Mean Beijing Is Now Trapped – Tyler Durden
9 januari
It may be Saturday, but there is no rest for the onslaught of negative data from China, which overnight reported the latest, December, consumer and producer price inflation numbers, with the former printing at 1.6% Y/Y, matching consensus estimates, and a tiny increase from the 1.5% in November: the modest pick up was due to one-time items, primarily vegetable prices. For all of 2015, CPI rose 1.4%, down from 2.0% in 2014, and the slowest annual increase since 2009 and well below Beijing’s goal of keeping last year’s inflation below 3%.
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A “Stealth” Bear Market Has Already Begun – Bill Bonner
6 januari
Yesterday, we reported that the U.S. manufacturing sector shrank for the fifth month in a row in December.
We could have added that it is now back to levels last seen in July 2009 – in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis. We could have mentioned, too, that the Baltic Dry Index – which tracks the cost of shipping raw materials by sea – just hit a record low. We’ve been citing many other fundamental indicators all pointing the same way – toward a weakening global economy.
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Preferential regulatory treatment and banks’ demand for government bonds – Clemens Bonner
3 januari
Economists continue to debate whether preferential treatment in financial regulation increases banks’ demand for government bonds. This column looks at bank purchases of government bonds and other types of bonds when constrained by a capital or liquidity requirement. Financial regulation seems to be a main driver of banks’ demand. If regulators wish to break the vicious circle from weak banks to weak governments, revising financial regulation seems to be a good starting point.
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Start-up governments, or can bureaucracies innovate? – Rainer Kattel and Erkki Karo
4 januari
For most economists and indeed for social scientists in general such a question induces shudders as already asking this seems wrong – aren’t governments more prone to failures than markets, and aren’t governments supposed to provide basic and stable institutions for markets to function?
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2016 Theme #4: The End-Game of Debt-Fueled “Growth” – Charles Hugh Smith
7 januari
A number of systemic, structural forces are intersecting in 2016. One is the end-game of debt-fueled “growth.”
We can summarize the official “solution” to the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008 in one line: borrow and blow trillions–of yen, yuan, dollars, euros, reals, you name it.
The goal of borrowing and blowing trillions was to re-invigorate “growth”– any kind of “growth,” no matter how wasteful, unproductive or even counter-productive it might be: wars, nation-building, ghost cities, needless MRIs, useless college diplomas, bridge to nowhere–anything the borrowed money was squandered on counts as “growth” in the Keynesian status quo.
Unsurprisingly, this strategy yields diminishing returns as the negative returns on all this debt-fueled spending piles up. While the yield on the “investment” is either negative or only fleetingly positive, the interest due on the debt is forever. That’s the source of diminishing returns in a nutshell.
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Are We Headed for Another Bust? – Frank Shostak
5 januari
On Wednesday December 16, 2015, Federal Reserve Bank policymakers raised the federal funds rate target by 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent for the first time since December 2008. There is the possibility that the target could be lifted gradually to 1.25 percent by December next year.
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Why household debt makes economies prone to crises of confidence – Thomas Hintermaier, Winfried Koeniger
9 januari
Crises of confidence turn booms into busts. Bloated household balance sheets and high debt offer the right ingredients for a confidence-driven housing bust. This column develops an analytic framework that accommodates the potential role of confidence fluctuations as a source of uncertainty in the economy. Current debt levels are shown to determine the exposure to crises of confidence. The results point to a clear role for macroprudential policy in the prevention of such crises.
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Bob Janjuah Warns The Bubble Implosion Can’t Be “Fixed” This Time – Tyler Durden
7 januari
Having correctly foreseen in September that “China’s devaluations are not over yet” it appears Nomura’s infamous ‘bear’ Bob Janjuah has also nailed The Fed’s subsequent actions (hiking rates into a fundamentally weakening economy in a desperate bid to “convince markets that strong growth and inflation are on their way back”). In light of this, his latest note today should be worrisome to many as he warns the S&P 500 will trade down around 20% to 25% from current levels in H1, down to the 1500s and for dip-buyers, it’s over: “I now feel even more certain that debt-driven asset bubble implosions cannot merely be ‘fixed’ with even more debt and another round of central bank-driven asset bubbles.”
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2016 Theme #5: The Systemic Failure of High Finance – Charles Hugh Smith
8 januari
A number of systemic, structural forces are intersecting in 2016. One is the failure of high finance to fix the global economy’s systemic problems.
The operative conceit of the past 7 years has been that high finance can fix whatever’s broken in the world’s economies. According to this narrative, all the world needed to boost “growth,” employment and profits was lower interest rates, more liquidity, reverse repos and some other fancy financial footwork.
Once all this high finance generated more borrowing by debt-serfs, property developers, students, corporations buying back their shares and financiers skimming billions from asset bubbles, systemic problems would be dissolved or mitigated.
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***Global Corporate Debt is Coming Unglued – Wolf Richter
6 januari
Standard & Poor’s slashed the credit ratings of 112 corporations around the globe to default (D) or selective default (SD) in 2015, according to S&P Capital IQ Global Credit. The highest number of global defaults since nightmare-year 2009, when a previously unthinkable 268 companies defaulted, and not far behind the second highest default tally of 125, in 2008.
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For Commodities, This Is The Next Great Depression – Tyler Durden
7 januari
While the “sell in 1973, and go away” plan had worked out for some in the commodity space, the destruction of the last decade has only one historical comparison… the middle of The Great Depression.
The 10-year rolling annualized return for commodities is -5.1% – the lowest since 1938…
During the same period Stocks are up 7.3% annualized, Bonds 6.6%, and Cash unchanged. Dip-buying opportunity? Maybe.
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Emerging markets at a crossroads – M Ayhan Kose, Franziska Ohnsorge, Lei (Sandy) Ye
7 januari
Emerging markets face their fifth consecutive year of slowing growth. This column examines the nature of the slowdown and appropriate policy responses. Repeated downgrades in long-term growth expectations suggest that the slowdown might not be simply a pause, but the beginning of an era of weak growth for emerging markets. The countries concerned urgently need to put in place policies to address their cyclical and structural challenges and promote growth.
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Internal War Is Now On The Horizon For America – Brandon Smith
6 januari
If internationalists were to get their way fully with the world and future historians write their analysis from a globalist perspective of the defunct American nation, they will probably say simply that our collapse was brought about by our own incompetence – that we were our own worst enemy. Yes, they would treat America as a cliché. They will of course leave out the destructive influences and engineered disasters of elitists, that would just complicate the narrative.
My hope is that we do not prove these future historians correct, and that they won’t have an opportunity to exist. My work has always been designed to help ensure that resistance thrives, but also that it is pursued in the most intelligent manner possible.
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Disclaimer: De VoL-redactie selecteert deze artikelen op interessante inzichten, of naar wij denken nuttige informatie. Wij kunnen echter geen enkele aansprakelijkheid aanvaarden voor de gevolgen van beslissingen die op grond hiervan door lezers zijn genomen, zakelijk zomin als privé.