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The Economist cites IMF economist estimates that the public debt of the 10 largest industrialized countries will jump from 78% to 114% of GDP by 2014, leading to higher interest rates and inflation.
06/11/2009
The rising public debt and its unsustainability is what the future holds. For governments and decisionmakers there are very difficult choices, as fiscaly austerity and premature fiscal tightening or raising interest ratescan choke off a recovery. Raising taxes as happened earlier in Japan's lost decade also can choke off a recovery. Seriously tacklig health care costs and raising the retirement age, are much needed steps.
Linked Articles
Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates
Wall Street Journal 06/11/2009
The biggest bill in historyEconomist 06/11/2009
Deflation and the bond market pushing up rates in June 2009.
06/11/2009
Linked Articles
Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates
Wall Street Journal 06/11/2009
Today's Inflation Hawk: The Bond MarketWall Street Journal 06/16/2009
Peter Coy, Economics editor of Business Week, on the risks of inflation.
06/11/2009
Krugman responded to Laffer's oped in WSJ with an op-ed of his own in the NYT suggesting that Bernanke's Fed should stay the course. In this article Peter Coy, aveteran reporter and analyst of BW, looks at the situation and the facts. Demand is so weak in the economy, that the Fed's expansion of the money supply only helps make up for this and still falls short. The economy will be fragile for some time to come so reversing course is simply dangerous. In the video that goes with this he tells Mandel that Bernanke is right and should stay the course.
Linked Articles
Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates
Wall Street Journal 06/11/2009
Why the Fed Isn't Igniting InflationBusinessWeek 06/18/2009
As the government sells $5 trillion in new debt by one estimate, the problem of an estimated $ 1 trillion in troubled assets on the banks books is being put off for another day.
06/04/2009
The FDIC's Legacy Loans Program's $1 billion pilot program attracts no interest. The Public Private Partnership Program of Secretary Geithner, like Secretary Paulson's TARP program before Geithner, is also unlikely to attract much interest as banks are not willing to take the prices that would require them to show large losses on their books. But this means that these problems are postponed for another day.
Linked Articles
Plan to Help Banks Clear Their Books Is Halted
New York Times 06/04/2009
Rising Interest on Nations’ Debts May Sap World GrowthNew York Times 06/04/2009
An Arab view about the need to change old attitudes and perceptions about US and Muslim world differences.
06/03/2009
The need for education in the Muslim and Arab world that helps melt old attitudes and perceptions. This is a large region covering the Arabs in Egypt and North Africa to Muslims in South Asia.
Linked Articles
President Obama's Cairo Appeal
Washington Post 06/05/2009
Education vs. ExtremismWall Street Journal 06/03/2009
The huge downsizing in the auto industry creates the need for big government supported initatives in retraining.
05/21/2009
Vicotr Brown and the 60,000 former workers at GM's BUick City have worked at GM all their lives, and can't imagine anything else. How does one get them from joining the ranks of the permanently unemployed, is a challenge for the government. THe labor underutilization rate expected to reach 20% for 2010, could threaten the economic recovery, and put everything at risk.
Linked Articles
Stuck at Unemployed: When A Layoff Becomes a Lifestyle
Washington Post 06/06/2009
The Last Holdouts Cast Their Lot With G.M.New York Times 05/21/2009
The youth vote in India's 2014 and 2009 parliamentary elections
05/02/2009
Linked Articles
Wall Street Journal 05/02/2009
Hopes of a Generation Ride on Indian VoteNew York Times 05/15/2014
Gaps and flaws in the stress tests could cause problems later on
04/26/2009
How the Citigroup stress test conclusion does not match up with large pending losses in aworst case scenario. The ineffectiveness of the regulatory structure, as the FDIC is burdened with a large loss sharing agreement with Citigroup, but has not been able to get a change in the management at Citiigroup so that action is speeded up.
Linked Articles
Wall Street Journal 06/05/2009
The Stress Test ResultsNew York Times 04/26/2009
With bank lending anemic and consumers adopting afrugal lifestyle, two pillars of recovery are missing in the picture.
04/16/2009
Admirable rhetoric and clear ideas, but still falling short in key areas like foreclosure prevention and bank lending, is how the Obama economic recovery sccorecard reads in April 2009.
Linked Articles
When You're Flush, But Acting Flat Broke
Washington Post 04/16/2009
Lending By Bailout Recipients Falls AgainWashington Post 04/16/2009
WPost editorial thinks Obama's speech at Georgetown scored well on clarity and grasp of facts, but poorly on candor and courage to address entitlement reform.
04/14/2009
The WPost editors agree that defict reduction and entilement reform are a hard sell for the President, whereas the rest of his agenda can sail through a Democratic Congress. It asks the question, is the President dodging the tough choices?
Linked Articles
From President Obama, Economic Clarity but Little Courage
Washington Post 04/15/2009
Text of Obama Economic SpeechBusinessWeek 04/14/2009
Interest rate swap contracts sold by banks to the city of Detroit in 2005 and the "kiko" derivative contracts sold by banks to exporters in S. Korea before the 2008 global financial crisis
04/03/2009
The huge losses suffered by Detroit and by exporters in S. Korea and how the issues raised were handled in the two places. What takes precedence fairness or contracts, how much of a contract has to be intelligible to the investor and the broader question of why banks needed to write such contracts or conduct business in this way which could hurt their reputation. An example is given by Floyd Norris of NYT where Bankers Trust reputation suffered badly in 1994 for selling such contracts to P&G.
Linked Articles
New York Times 04/03/2009
'Safe Harbor' in Bankruptcy Upended in Detroit CaseNew York Times 12/23/2013
Geithner's Plan for Toxic Assets
03/23/2009
Experts are doubtful Geithner's plan of March 23, 2009 for toxic assets will work. Its similiar to plans previously announced by Paulson in the Bush administration. Views of Krugman, Eavis and Reinhart. If lack of confidence and lack of liquidity were the only problems they say, government money as incentives might work, but the problem is more basic and structural. These mortgage securities are from a time of easy money, now investors are shy of risks and would discount them even more as a safety factor, and banks would not want to sell them at that price. Are stress tests and nationalization of failed banks around the corner?
Linked Articles
Why Congress Will Kill the Bank Rescue
Wall Street Journal 03/24/2009
Geithner's Gamble Needs SpeculatorsWall Street Journal 03/23/2009
The Money multiplier is broken and the Fed's infusions are ending up in bank reserves.
03/20/2009
Banks have $679 billion in reserves, says Gongloff, and this matches the $653 billion that the Fed added to the money supply in this period. With the money multiplier broken the money is simply adding to the buildup of reserves at the banks.
Linked Articles
Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates
Wall Street Journal 06/11/2009
Best Check on Inflation: Broken BanksWall Street Journal 03/20/2009
Paul Krugman responds to Arthur Laffer's points about inflation by saying reversing course would put us back into a steep downturn.
06/11/2009
Krugman says only three times in the past has amajor economy faced a liquidity trap, where there is no more room to cut interest rates. During the depression years, during Japan's lost decade and now. In the previous two situations, in 1937 and 1996, a premature tightening of credit put the economy back into a steep downturn.
Linked Articles
Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates
Wall Street Journal 06/11/2009
Stay the CourseNew York Times 06/15/2009
Treasury data show the 10 year Treasury bond yield went up to 3.78% in April from 3.0% 3 months ago.
06/11/2009
The effect of large Fed purchases of Treasury's may be the reverse of lowering rates, as creditors to the government see rising inflation from the Fed's unprecedented actions.
Linked Articles
Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates
Wall Street Journal 06/11/2009
Fed's Conundrum on Treasury PurchasesWall Street Journal 06/15/2009
Bernanke's views on how the underutilization of labor in todays markets should make inflation less of a threat.
06/11/2009
Remarks by Bernanke to the Open Market Committee of the Fed in 2003, have a relevance to the situation facing the economy today. Rising raw materials prices and the falling dollar are likely to have a muted effect on inflation. The impact of slowing wages and the high unemployment and growing underutilization of labor, in the midst of a manufacturing capacity utilization rate of 68% and continuing to fall, are likely to be the deciding factors.
Linked Articles
Slack Labor Markets Will Hold Down Prices
Wall Street Journal 06/23/2009
Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest RatesWall Street Journal 06/11/2009
Obama's Cairo speech on June 4, 2009 to the Muslim world coincides with Moussavi taking on Ahmadinejad for his extremism in Teheran in an election debate.
06/04/2009
Moussavi debated forcefully with Ahmadinejad on Iranian television calling for good sense in relations with the rest of the world and calling Ahmadinnejad an extremist. He called Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust as undermining Iran's dignity, while Obama called it baseless, ignorant and hateful. Something that could only occur in the climate created by Obama's opening of a dialogue with the Muslim world and helping melt old attitudes and perceptions.
Linked Articles
President Obama's Cairo Appeal
Washington Post 06/05/2009
Iran President and Challenger Clash in DebateNew York Times 06/04/2009
The $5 trillion in new debt expected for 2009-2010, will become harder to reverse if the rising foreclosures weaken any recovery.
06/02/2009
With 15.4 million homeowners under water and rising unemployment exacerbating the foreclosure rate, and no governement solution in sight, any recovery will be weak. This makes the debt reduction less likely, and weakens prospects for economic growth.
Linked Articles
Rising Interest on Nations’ Debts May Sap World Growth
New York Times 06/04/2009
Foreclosures: No End in SightNew York Times 06/02/2009
Two scenes-one of Gates and the other of Sgt. Hyland- and the knot that ties them together.
05/15/2009
Scenes of a rainy night at an airforce base in Delaware, as Defense Sec. Gates prays in a 747 with draped coffins of dead soldiers. And the scene of a maimed soldier, Sgt Hyland, weeping in front of a picture of Specialist Jonathan at a battalion hall in Diyala province. near Baghdad. And the relevance to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Linked Articles
Wounded Soldiers Return to Iraq, Seeking Solace
New York Times 10/15/2009
Pentagon's Gates Keeps Single-Minded Focus on Dual Wars in Iraq and AfghanistanWashington Post 05/15/2009
The smaller stimulus and selective investments in 2012-2014 in China and how this affects construction and heavy equipment manufacturers
04/30/2009
The impact on Caterpillar, Volvo AB, Komatsu, John Deere, Cummins and domestic Chinese manufacturers of the smaller stimulus and selective investments in China in the years ahead. Manufacturers are exporting from China during this period of slowing sales in China.
Linked Articles
China Bets Sour for Heavy Equipment Firms
Wall Street Journal 08/16/2012
China's Stimulus Spurs U.S. BusinessWall Street Journal 04/30/2009
Laffer says inflation and high interest rates are a sure thing with the $1 trillion increase in the monetary base since Sept 2008.
04/23/2009
This is the largest increase in the monetary base in the last 50 years by afactor of 10, and is unlike anything ever experienced before. He sees inflation and rising interest rates as a result surpassing anything seen in the 1970's. Bernanke he says faces a Hobson's choice between contracting the monetary base and putting the economy back in recession and letting things go the way they are resulting in steep inflation. He sees the Fed having the option of increasing the reserve requirements at banks, to restrain the increase in the monetary base.
Linked Articles
Economist 04/23/2009
Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest RatesWall Street Journal 06/11/2009
In the two areas that government can make aserious difference, foreclosure prevention and bank lending it is failing.
04/15/2009
The government has only indirect influence over the other important variables in the equation for economic recovery, consumption and employment. Through foreclosure prevention and bank lending it can influence consumption and employment. Obama's program while admirable may simply fall short of what is required. Through asimple takeover of insolvent banks the administrationcan implement its own programs for goreclosure prevention and aggressive bank lending at attractive rates, but this has to be done early before business go into permanent retrenchment mode and consumers simply revert to a frugal lifestyle of an earlier generation.
Linked Articles
Lending By Bailout Recipients Falls Again
Washington Post 04/16/2009
Banks Ramp Up ForeclosuresWall Street Journal 04/15/2009
The gap between the admirable comments and clarity of Obama's Georgetown sppech and the growing foreclosures, dramatic drops in business and consumer lending.
04/14/2009
Failure to stem foreclosures and to ramp up business and consumer lending, by taking over insolvent banks and offering loans at attractive rates, is hurting the economy and will lead to further job losses.
Linked Articles
Lending By Bailout Recipients Falls Again
Washington Post 04/16/2009
Text of Obama Economic SpeechBusinessWeek 04/14/2009
The crisis in Eastern Europe and other developing countries and the G20 policy mandate to the IMF to support social help and stimulus spending
03/28/2009
The G-20 mandate that the IMF be the conduit for funds to help emerging countries, with the policy direction that an additional $850 billion be used not only to fix finances, but also emphasize social goals, and help people in these countries cope with the crisis. This is of great help to countries in difficulty, and assurance that the social fabric in these countries will not be torn apart as has happened before, and that people will get the necessary assistance.
Linked Articles
Steven Pearlstein - A Rare Triumph of Substance at the Summit
Washington Post 04/03/2009
Eastern Europe and the Financial CrisisWall Street Journal 03/28/2009
Peter Eavis thinks the Geithner plan isn't based on sound logic.
03/23/2009
If only the confidence and liquidity were an issue then maybe the Geithner Public Private Investment Program plan might work. But says Eavis, the underlying price structure for these mortgage securities is gone with this crisis,so that the recovery in their price for banks to avoid huge losses is going to be elusive. He cites Credit Sights which estimates losses of US banks through 2010 of $250- $450 billion.
Linked Articles
Treasury’s Got Bill Gross on Speed Dial
New York Times 06/21/2009
Geithner's Gamble Needs SpeculatorsWall Street Journal 03/23/2009
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