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.

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

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Do higher interest rates raise or lower inflation? – John Cochrane
19 oktober
The standard new-Keynesian model accounts well for the fact that inflation has been stable at a zero interest rate peg. However, If the Fed raises nominal interest rates, the same model model predicts that inflation will smoothly rise, both in the short run and long run. This paper presents a series of failed attempts to escape this prediction. Sticky prices, money, backward-looking Phillips curves, alternative equilibrium selection rules, and active Taylor rules do not convincingly overturn the result. The evidence for lower inflation is weak. Perhaps both theory and data are trying to tell us that, when conditions including adequate fiscal-monetary coordination operate, pegs can be stable and inflation responds positively to nominal interest rate increases.
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Open-Mouth Operations – John Cochrane
22 oktober
Our central banks have done nothing but talk for several years now. Interest rates are stuck at zero, and even QE has stopped in its tracks. Yet, people still ascribe big powers to these statements. Ms. Yellen sneezes, someone thinks they hear “December” and markets move.
Buried deep in the paper I posted earlier this week is a potential model of “open mouth” operations, that might of interest to blog readers.
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Europe Secretly Starts Imposing TTIP “Trade” Deal Despite the Public’s Overwhelming Opposition – Eric Zuesse
20 oktober
The terms of Obama’s proposed TPP ‘trade’ treaty with Asian countries won’t be made public until the treaty has already been in force for at least four years. The terms of Obama’s proposed TISA (Trade In Services Agreement) with 52 nations won’t be made public until the treaty has already been in force for at least five years. Obama’s proposed TTIP treaty with European countries has been so successfully hidden, that even the number of years it will be kept from the public isn’t yet known. Hello, international fascism — all in secret, until too late for the public to do anything.
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Why Mainstream Economists Deny Housing Bubbles Until After They Implode – Which They ALWAYS Do – Lindsay David
20 oktober
Since the end of the Second World War, there have been more than 40 housing bubbles across the globe, and they all ended with a hard landing. One of the housing bubbles already written in the history books as one of the greatest of all time was the Irish housing bubble of the last decade.
And when you look through these history books (or YouTube for better entertainment), you find a remarkable trend between those who identified or failed to identify the forthcoming collapse of their housing bubbles.
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This Is Why It’s Going to Get Even Tougher – Wolf Richter
23 oktober
The third quarter was tough for US corporations. Worse than the prior two quarters. They got waylaid by weak global demand and lack of pricing power. The easiest way to increase revenues and profits is to raise prices, so via inflation, but that strategy isn’t working when consumers don’t have the additional income to pay for higher prices.
Then there’s the “strong dollar.” On Thursday, Draghi evoked more QE and even more negative deposit rates, which eviscerated the euro and made the dollar a heck of a lot stronger. And so many US corporations are now reporting declining revenues.
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Four Ticking Global Time-Bombs Few Even Hear – Charles Hugh Smith
18 oktober
The geopolitical and financial risks facing the global economy are well-known. Hot wars and currency meltdowns garner headlines around the world.
But few even hear, much less discuss, four ticking global time-bombs:
1. The demographic time-bomb.
2. The public health time-bomb.
3. The food/water/soil time-bomb.
4. The oil-export time-bomb.
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Reflections on Venezuela’s “Economic Miracle” – Andrew Syrios
23 oktober
Back in 2013, Salon took a quick break from criticizing a caricature of libertarianism to let David Sirota write an embarrassing article praising socialism in what turns out to be a fantastic case study in both the dangers of socialist economics and of course, speaking too soon.
The article was titled “Hugo Chavez’s Economic Miracle” and it was certainly not the only one of its kind to come out at the time. It may seem like twenty-twenty hindsight to criticize such foolishness, but it might be instructive as well. However, looking at Venezuela now as compared to the country Sirota saw in 2013 and thought provided an economic alternative to American capitalism (a truly free market was never discussed) serves as a good example of what Nicolás Cachanosky calls “the bait-and-switch behind economic populism.” Or namely, that government policies focused highly on consumption and lowly on investment will show good economic signs at the beginning, only to be followed by an inevitable decline and likely disaster.
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Too Many Vultures, Too Little Carrion, Redux – David Merkel
22 oktober
Today’s topic is the debt and equity of companies producing energy, or providing services to them, all of which get hurt by a lower oil price. In the recent past, you have had marginal energy companies able to get financing amid decreasing opportunities for decent profits. Thus the article at the Wall Street Journal talking about hedge funds losing money on recently placed bets on energy.
Aiding the financing of marginal companies can pay off if the companies will be profitable within a reasonable window of time, or, if you are trying to buy assets cheap for a reorganization. But if there is too much capacity, and thus low prices for products, the profits after financing may never emerge, and the value of the assets may sag.
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The Real Trouble Begins When Rising Inequality Splinters the Elites – Charles Hugh Smith
22 oktober
Rising economic inequality tends to generate political instability for all the obvious reasons: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, the rich say let them eat brioche and next thing you know, the ungrateful wretches are tearing down the Bastille and a youthful army officer has to restore order with a whiff of grapeshot. After which he launches a war of conquest that kills hundreds of thousands and bankrupts nations.
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Negative real rates signify a broken financial system – Carolyn Sissoko
21 oktober
Noah Smith reviews the debate over negative real rates, and Brad DeLong remarks on “how profoundly strange and unexpected” is the current environment. While Noah covers all the most common explanations for real rates, I think that he — and most of econo-blogosphere — are missing a key factor that is probably driving this data.
First, recall that the problem of negative real rates is very much focused on the “safe” side of the market. That is, it is Treasuries (and similar assets like Bunds) that bear negative real rates. The market rates available to non-public borrowers are much higher than the rate on “safe assets.” (The distinction between these two rates is the premise behind Caballero and Farhi’s work.)
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Employment Is Nothing Like Slavery – Julian Adorney
21 oktober
What is necessary to take away a man’s freedom? For many progressives, nothing more then a bad workplace. Amazon takes ongoing heat for its work environment, with opponents like Business Insider calling it a “slave camp.”
But this comparison mistakes the fundamental nature of coercion.
Many leftists, such as left-libertarian Susan Webber at Naked Capitalism, argue that we must work in order to live, and that therefore work is coercive. If you must do X to live, then surely whoever controls your ability to do X is coercing you.
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The jobs miracle: digging deeper – Flip Chart Fairy Tales – Distinguising between London & the UK.
22 oktober
The job figures have been looking much better recently. The employment rate continues to rise and wages have even started picking up. The number of full-time employee jobs passed its pre-recession level sometime last year, so the recovery no longer looks as dependent on self employment as it did a year or so ago.
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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.