Category Archives: Intervention

The Beggar’s Opera

Though a lot of hot money was poured into the trade in the last quarter of 2020, there is still much reluctance on the part of economists – always prone to a spot of Under-consumption fallacy – to wholly embrace the idea that prices are beginning to rise and that the path ahead is likely to be an inflationary one. That path will inevitably not be smooth, nor its ascent uninterrupted, but it is hard to see where we slow the climb or take a different turning – or even that sufficient will exists to choose that alternative were it ever to come up on our satnav.

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Fire and Water

This essay attempts a review of the economics – and the prevailing economic thinking – which have brought us to our present pass of high-leverage and heavy debt-dependence. It helps set the backdrop for an in-depth look at markets which will follow shortly…

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A Great Deal of Ruin

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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Saturn Devours His Children

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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Whatever it doesn’t take

On March 15th, the Eurozone branch of the Throw-more-money-at-it lobby were making themselves heard, calling for the ECB to run the printing presses for a limited (author pulls down lower eyelid with index finger) period as a supplement to the to the €120 billion in extra security purchases already made to that point. [NB total ‘assistance’ to April 17th had reached to €275bln in RP, €148bln in securities, and €126bln in FX swaps for a total of €550bln in five short weeks].We responded:-

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What IS a ‘Market’?

In response to an FT article of January 23rd entitled, “The new kings of the bond market”, which suggested that banks had ceded their command over fixed income to exchange-traded funds and active portfolio traders, we responded with a riff on the sorry consequences of recent financial developments: a bromide which turned out to be singularly well-timed in view of the extraordinary upheavals suffered just a few, short weeks later:-

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How Essential is ‘Essential’?

In the drive to prevent (viral) death by means of mass (economic) suicide, our Overlords have begun to order the cessation of activities in all ‘non-essential’ businesses.

While one can sympathise with the sentiment, it is, sadly, yet another example of the ignorant doing harm by trying to do good, since it shows absolutely no understanding of the complexity of the modern economy or of the elevated degree of interdependency which exists within it.

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Consuming Folly

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The Man Who Would Be King

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