Category Archives: Fiscal policy

Bank of England, Bitcoin, BOJ, Budget, Central banks, Commodities, CPI, Crypto, ECB, Emerging Markets, Equities, Europe, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Fixed Income, Government, Inflation, Japan, Keynesianism, Macro, Metals, money supply, Politics, Production, Revenues, Tech, UK, UK Treasury, US Treasury, USA

Burning Holes in Idlers’ Pockets

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

Inflation, Milton Friedman famously said, is a monetary phenomenon. But it is also one given the readiest of outlets through recourse to what we call ‘fiscal’ policy – i.e., by spendthrift governments borrowing money created at their call and forced into the system by means of warfare, welfare, contracting, cronyism, bureaucratic expansion and plain old boondogglery. Arguably, this is where we find ourselves today, in a world where supply is no longer likely to meet demand as abundantly and as effortlessly as has been the case these past twenty years.

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Bank of England, BOE, Bonds, Central banks, Corporatism, Credit, ECB, Europe, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Fixed Income, Inflation, Macro, MMT, Money, Planning, Politics, QE, UK Treasury, US Treasury, USA

Tighten Your Belts: The Rationale

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

Markets seem happy for now to focus on the carrot of a vaccine while ignoring the stick of the further severe restrictions to life and liberty being implemented while we await its delivery. Whether or not it offers a release from bondage, the state’s rediscovered taste for authoritarianism will, however, take some good time to dispel, while its corollary – the move toward taking an ever greater role amid the wreckage of the private economy – is being pursued with relish. Whatever the sloganizing, this is very unlikely to Build anything Back Better – only dearer and scarcer.

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Asset Class, Bonds, Central banks, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Fixed Income, Free Markets, Government, Technocracy, Uncategorized, US Treasury, USA

The Rhyme of History

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

While stocks have generally tended to offer better returns than Treasuries, it has not all been plain sailing for equity investors. Intriguingly, the last 50 years’ ups and downs share more than a few similarities with the first half of the last century. Could that uncanny resemblance continue to hold henceforward?

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Bonds, Budget, Central banks, Deficit, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Fixed Income, Inflation, Saving, US Treasury, USA, Volatility, Yield Curve

MOVE-ing the Dial

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

Bond yields have started to creep higher – and curves to flex steeper – as the market begins to fret that the willing fiscal subservience of the central bank can only presage a coming inflation. With bond volatility still reasonably cheap, now might be the time to take cognisance of this.

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Bank of England, Budget, Central banks, Economics, Fiscal policy, Fixed Income, Forex, Government, Inflation, Intervention, money supply, Revenues, UK, UK Treasury

A Great Deal of Ruin

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

The Johnson government’s approach to COVID19 has been a toxic mix of contradiction, vacillation, and jackbooted authoritarianism. There seems no exit strategy and no end to the spiralling cost. We take a critical look at the impact on the budget impact and discuss what it means for inflation.

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Banking, Budget, Deficit, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Fixed Income, Government, Inflation, Macro, MMT, US Treasury, USA

Fiscal Free Lunch

Posted on by Sean Corrigan
[This is the first of a series of short bulletins called, ‘The Course of the Exchange’, in memory of John Castaing’s widely-read updates, posted in Jonathan’s Coffee House in Change Alley, 300 years ago]

With the latest CBO estimates for the US Federal budget for August just in, we are again in a position to take stock of the scale of the burden which the COVID-19 lockdowns and more general restrictions have imposed upon the nation’s finances. It does not make for happy reading.

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Austrian Theory, Central banks, Economics, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Inflation, Keynesianism, Liberty, Macro, MMT, Money, money supply

MMT Vessels Make The Most Noise

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

As a sort of Keynes-manqué, Stephanie Kelton’s moment in the limelight is being granted her for much the same reason as was that of her more illustrious predecessor: she is telling free-spending politicians what they always want to hear – viz., that their habitual incontinence is statesmanship of the highest order.
With our good professor never missing an opportunity to remind anyone and everyone that her book – a veritable almanac of economic hocus-pocus – tops the non-fiction charts (surely a gross miscategorization if ever there was), we must therefore re-emphasize our view that the REAL peril of Magic Money Tree economics – aka MMT – is what it means for the private sphere in general and the scope for genuine entrepreneurship in particular, NOT whether it causes prices to rise or not. The question is one of liberty, not inflation; real prosperity, not growth.

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Austrian Theory, Central banks, Corporatism, Credit, Economics, Entrepreneur, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Inflation, Intervention, Liberty, Macro, MMT, money supply, Planning, Production, Saving, savings glut, Technocracy

Saturn Devours His Children

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

A recent Wall St Journal article gave vent to a scare-story full of Underconsumptionist claptrap, carried under the catchy headline: “The Coronavirus Savings Glut”. Ironically, and only a day later, the paper ran a second piece entitled “How Coronavirus Upended a Trillion-Dollar Corporate Borrowing Binge and Kicked Off a Wave of Bankruptcies

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Bank of England, Central banks, COVID19, CPI, ECB, Economics, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Government, Inflation, Japan, MMT, Money, Productivity, UK Treasury, US Treasury, Wages

After the Fall of Caffa

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

While politicians anxiously check the shifting weather-vanes of public opinion and scientists squabble over facts as well as interpretations, central banks are resolutely doing what they do best – wildly exceeding their briefs and trying to drown all problems in a flood of newly-created money. As ever, the underconsumptionists worry that a lack of demand will usher in deflation, in spite of all such efforts. Some of us, however, worry more about what it will do to supply. Here, we explain why.

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Austrian Theory, Banking, Central banks, Credit, Cycles, Deflation, Economics, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Inflation, Money, US Treasury

Money v Supply

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

With many commodity prices touching multi-year lows and with mounting fears for real estate valuations and car-lease residuals, numerous commentators seem convinced that ours is now a deflationary future. QE failed to raise CPI by anywhere near what the spin promised, they say, partly because it was ‘unsupported’ by fiscal policy. Therefore, if we don’t get Roosevelt, we’ll get Brüning, they conclude, and, meanwhile, we need the Fed to cut rates below zero, said one prominent pundit on April 5th. We replied:-

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