See no evil, speak no evil…
byThe Jackson Hole speeches of Janet Yellen and Mario Draghi last week were notable for the omission of any comment about the burning issues…
Economics
Taken To The Cleaners
byThe following, written exclusively for The Cobden Centre, is by Dean Buckner (Life Insurance and Pensions Department, Bank of England) Introduction Should regulators…
Dreams of Gerontius
byDemographics, productivity & the great central bank fallacy of interest rate determination Summary As we go to press, the Mighty Oz’s and Grand Panjandrums…
Austrian Monetary Theory vs. Federal Reserve Inflation Targeting
byOne of the leading policy guideposts for central banks and many monetary policy proponents nowadays is the idea of “inflation targeting.” Several major central…
Liquidity trap – what is it all about?
bySome economists such as Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman are of the view that if the US were to fall into liquidity trap the US…
Maths versus magic
by“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” George Carlin. If investors were…
Should bank regulation be relaxed?
byLeading Federal Reserve policymaker Stanley Fischer has hit out at plans to unwind banking regulation, calling it a “terrible mistake.” President Donald Trump and…
The 2017 Stress Tests: Are US Banks Really in Good Shape?
by“… equally efficacious, and equally a hoax.” – Benjamin Disraeli, 1848[1] One of the highlights of the U.S. summer for Fed watchers is the annual ritual…
Ten Years On: Recession, Recovery and the Regulatory State
byWhat we now know to have been one of the worst economic and financial crises of the post-World War II period began about ten…
The fiscal benefits of free trade
byWestern governments have an overriding problem, and that is they have reached or exceeded the bounds of taxation, at a time when legally mandated…