For those of us in the field of finance, the last several weeks have been interesting – not to say hair-raising – ones with regard to the financial and economic aspects of the coronavirus epidemic and a fortiori with the official, hyper-Lehman response to it.
Leaving aside the medical issues, there is much of potentially far-reaching importance here to discuss.
Ah, Brexit! What is there left to say that not already been said, most of it either out of folly or falsehood? As regards the overall political backdrop to this lightning bolt of mass discontent, the only thing that is clear is that there is no clarity—neither within Britain nor without. If, as the Good Book […]
‘Dear True Sinews, what are your thoughts on Brexit? Roger Bootle wrote a piece in the Telegraph yesterday suggesting that just because everyone is saying one thing, it doesn’t necessarily follow they are right Currently, I sit firmly on the fence getting splinters! Neither side is convincing me either way.’ So wrote a friend the other day. What […]
Riddle me this, if you will. ‘Europe’ as a concept has perhaps never stood in lower regard, whether in the eyes of its own citizens or of those of us thankfully still beyond its reach. Yet the euro is strengthening – with options showing levels of bullishness not seen since the 2008/9 Crisis – and the […]
That the artificial interest rates in evidence in our hugely distorted capital and money markets can be made negative in nominal as well as in real terms is, alas, the curse of the modern age. Though entirely at odds with natural order – as we have repeatedly tried to make plain – they are also […]
In the wake of the so-called ‘Panama Papers’ furore, the push-button issue of the One Percent being found able – OH! THE HORROR! – to shield some of its wealth from the taxman, regardless of the jurisdiction in which its members have chosen to set up shop, has predictably called forth bad economics, dubious legal […]
Please read on for a little light Christmas cheer, with apologies to the spirit of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
We are in danger of being blinded by semiotics and so losing sight of substance. We are so convinced that the medium IS the message that we have forgotten to seek for the meaning it is supposed to convey. We have given in to the quack doctors and their unscientific theories of humours in the […]
Gloom and doom are starting to spread, despite the increasingly hollow-sounding reassurances being provided on an uninterrupted basis by nearly every central banker who comes within hailing distance of a microphone. [Extracted from ‘Midweek Macro Musings‘, Click Here for details]
Perhaps the first great lesson of economics, as emphasized by Henry Hazlitt, is that there is no free lunch. The second, courtesy of Frederic Bastiat, is that if it sometimes appears that there is one, it means that we simply have not looked deeply enough into the consequences of our attempt to enjoy it. The […]