Fans of monetary stimulus always ignore the biggest and best push for the economy. Cheap energy. Finding oil and gas.
The United States have achieved an economic stimulus equivalent to 1.3% of GDP thanks to the energy revolution brought by fracking. It is a very significant positive effect, both on the supply and demand side. Continue reading The Oil Market Is Well Supplied. Thoughts for 2014
The economic news of the week in Europe have reduced the euphoria about a possible recovery. France went into recession in the third quarter and general Eurozone data is weaker than expected. Continue reading Deflation? No, Disinflation. The Consequence of Interventionism
Relying on ever-rising house prices pushing home values up via artificially cheap lending creates only the illusion of growth – Ros Altmann
As you know, I have lived in London for ten years. The United Kingdom, throughout the Gordon Brown years, was the Keynesian stimulus experiment that the advocates inflation and devaluation always ‘forget’. They talk a lot about Abenomics and Obama but forget the stimulus+inflation-led economic destruction of the early 2000s, and the hole in public finances it caused. A hole that the UK has not been able to dig itself out of, despite carrying out a brutal monetary stimulus policy where the Bank of England buys nearly 70% of the public debt issued. Continue reading UK Recovery: Sustainable Or Another Housing Bubble?
Oil still trending down ($106.8.0 Brent), WTI discount to Brent now at $12/bbl.I have been talking all month about the widening driven by tightness in Brent and ample supplies in US. Brent has stayed strong this week on the drying up of Libyan exports. No such supply issues in the US where crude stocks have risen well above the 5-yr range causing the Brent-WTI spread to widen abruptly. Continue reading Commodities Update