Tag Archives: banking
Adair Turner (2): Misguided remedies
Caveat: I should mention to begin with that this critique is based on Lord Turner’s paper on “Escaping the Debt Addiction”; one paper cannot cover every area and he has (I understand) written a soon-to-be-published book that will presumably range more widely. The approach in this paper can be compared with that developed…
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The bare bones of a new policy regime
As argued in the post “Regime Uncertainty Undermines Confidence”, only a new policy regime, not changes to individual policy areas (such as regulatory policy) will reduce the existential angst that is crippling business and over-shadowing the recovery. New money….. It should establish a global currency standard. The standard should be sufficiently attractive that countries…
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How vulnerable is the dollar?
There is no point dreaming about a new monetary order when the dollar remains dominant and is here to stay. At least, for all practical purposes. That is the bottom line of most commentaries on proposals to reform the international monetary system, such as that advanced in The Money Trap. Indeed, the…
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The financial crisis was good for some
All the chest-beating about the financial crisis distracts attention from the fact that many parties gained from it. Governments – except for a few peripheral countries – obtained cheap financing. The US benefiited from a boost to international demand for the dollar, helping to put the euro in its place, just as a previous wave…
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1. In the Trap
To mark publication of the “bigger and better” 360-page paperback (at £16.99 from Amazon, with a new 38-page preface) this and the following posts list the book’s main themes, by Chapter, each with an update. Seen from November 2013, how have recent developments changed the analysis and/or policy prescription? Currrent Economic Outlook Although the short…
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III Four Challenges
The so-called international monetary non-system has four serious weaknesses. They are as follows: first, the absence of incentives to governments to correct global payments imbalances; secondly, the system’s dependence on one national currency, the US dollar, to serve as the major international reserve currency; thirdly, a dysfunctional financial sector and, fourthly, the systemic liability to…
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So what’s up?
Apart from the nomination of Janet Yellen ( a lovely, motherly person) to lead the Fed, what has happened since we departed for our summer/autumn long vacation? As always, the view one takes depends on your perspective. Are you the driver of a car negotiating tricky twists and turns, looking for traffic coming at…
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Central bankers should prepare for a new world
Central bankers are still trying to rescue their monetary policy models with some additional twists such as forward guidance, but not engaging in the fundamental re-think needed. (If you need better authority than I for this assertion, please do read Bill White in the Dallas Fed series here). Paul Tucker tells us that the new…
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Where have all the safe assets gone?
While it has already become a cliché to say that there is no such thing as a risk-free asset, policy makers and market participants are only just beginning to recognise what a major shift this is. If we are to get back to anything like the traaditional financial system, renewing the supply of such…
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The epiphany of central banking
Having listened to the three witches, and acted accordingly, only to be betrayed ‘in depest consequence’, our hero ‘Macbeth’ reaches his ascendancy, which marks the start of his downfall. He has a moment of realisation… Have central banks also reached an epiphany? Central banks have been instructed to keep their eyes not only on…
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