Finance
Yves here. Get a cup of coffee! Yet another meaty interview with Michael Hudson. This one extends Hudson’s themes of the historical evolution of capitalism, the struggle between industrial and…
One robin does not make a spring, but two just might. Curiously right on the heels of Congressional approval of an unseemly $40 billion aid package to US arms merchants…
Russia published its initial list of parties subject to its “retaliatory special economic measures.” Putin established the program by decree on May 3, designed to address the unlawful taking of…
Saudi Aramco has overtaken Apple as the world’s most valuable company after higher oil prices pushed shares of the world’s biggest crude exporter to record levels while a broader tech…
Who are the most underrated talents in AI and machine learning? Think technical, and think builders. More Midjourney, Gwern, and 15.ai. Comments are open, thanks in advance!
Official, chained, sticky price, 16% trimmed, and (for March) PCE deflator. Figure 1: Month-on-month inflation of CPI (blue), chained CPI (brown), 16% trimmed CPI inflation (red), sticky price CPI inflation…
by Calculated Risk on 5/11/2022 08:50:00 PM Thursday: • At 8:30 AM ET, the initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for 210 thousand up from…
Yesterday, a discussion on Marketplace (w/Justin Ho) about how these terms fit together. In order to explain, consider a broad price index (e.g., CPI). Then one can illustrate these concepts…
Dramatic plunge in headline CPI m/m inflation, but both headline and core surprise on upside. Figure 1: CPI month-on-month inflation rate, annualized (blue), 12 month or year-on-year inflation rate (pink), in…
By Lambert Strether of Corrente Bird Song of the Day This is Hermit Thrush Week at Naked Capitalism (hat tip Noone from Nowheresville). From New York, the Adirondacks. Fifteen minutes…
SAN FRANCISCO — Bitcoin was conceived more than a decade ago as “digital gold,” a long-term store of value that would resist broader economic trends and provide a hedge against…
by Calculated Risk on 5/11/2022 12:48:00 PM Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: 2nd Look at Local Housing Markets in AprilA brief excerpt: Here is a summary of…
As the market recovered from the great financial crisis, rallying off the lows, we kept hearing one rallying cry: “It’s a stock pickers market.” That turned out to be wrong…
by Calculated Risk on 5/11/2022 11:18:00 AM The Cleveland Fed released the median CPI and the trimmed-mean CPI this morning:According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the median Consumer…
Today's piece is also an announcement! I’m launching a new project with @TheAtlantic called “Progress," which pulls together my newsletter, monthly calls with readers on progress and the abundance agenda,…
Yves here. I know some readers like to hate on Sanders, but as a non-Democrat, he remains virtually the only guy in the room to make sensible, as in sufficiently…
by Calculated Risk on 5/11/2022 08:33:00 AM From the BLS: The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.3 percent in April on a seasonally adjusted basis after…
That of course is only one metric, and it focuses on flows rather than homes as an asset. It nonetheless puts a number of matters in perspective. Here it is…
Lambert and I, and many readers, agree that Ukraine has prompted the worst informational environment ever. We hope readers will collaborate in mitigating the fog of war — both real…
Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes a bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the…
Yves here. We’ve warned for some time that high energy prices will propagate through the prices of goods and services generally, just as they did in the 1970s oil shock.…
As readers may recall, we’ve been following the very long running shaggy dog story of the CalPERS long-term care policy debacle. The short version is that CalPERS violated the California…
I am no longer so sure, as I outlined in my recent Bloomberg column: Until recently, my view was that any actual use of a nuclear weapon, no matter the…
by Calculated Risk on 5/10/2022 09:00:00 PM Wednesday: • At 7:00 AM ET, The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.• At 8:30…
On machine learning: Here are the first three conversations.
By Lambert Strether of Corrente Bird Song of the Day This is Hermit Thrush Week at Naked Capitalism (hat tip Noone from Nowheresville). Dawn song. * * * Politics “But…
by Calculated Risk on 5/10/2022 12:01:00 PM Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Mortgage Originations by Credit Score and AgeA brief excerpt: The NY Fed released the Q1…
The mortgage refinancing boom is winding down and household debt levels are creeping up as consumers edge past the worst of the pandemic’s economic shock.Mortgage originations dropped sharply in the…
by Calculated Risk on 5/10/2022 11:10:00 AM From the NY Fed: Total Household Debt Increases in Q1 2022, Driven by Mortgage and Auto Balances The Federal Reserve Bank of New…
We discuss the difficulty investors have looking past temporary challenges and why we all have issues investors have looking past temporary challenges. Why Investors Have a Hard Time Buying Stocks…
Yves here. As most readers know, even though Emmanuel Macron won the French presidential election, not only was there not much enthusiasm for him, there was plenty of outright antipathy,…
by Calculated Risk on 5/10/2022 08:11:00 AM With the pandemic, there was a surge in 2nd home buying.I'm looking at data for some second home markets - and I'm tracking…