Archives
An Inflationary Depression
October 4th, 2019
Financial markets are ignoring bearish developments in international trade, which coincide with the end of a long expansionary phase for credit. Both empirical evidence from the one occasion these conditions existed in the past and reasoned theory suggest ...
Measuring Recession
September 20th, 2019
Using nominal GDP, or GDP deflated by the CPI, as the principal guide to the state of the economy is a common mistake which will eventually prove very costly. Having convinced themselves that GDP measures economic progress, government ...
China or US?
September 9th, 2019
China has made some silly errors in its conflict with the US, reflecting the arrogance that often afflicts every state actor. But the appearance that China is being backed into a corner over Huawei, trade tariffs and Hong ...
Negative interest rates and gold
August 30th, 2019
The reason for persistent strength in the price of gold can be found in the changing relationship between time preference for monetary gold, and a new round of interest rate suppression for the dollar. Evidence mounts that the ...
Our costly dalliance with Lord Keynes
August 28th, 2019
In “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”, Keynes virtually created macroeconomics. But Keynes was a mathematician, not an economist, and did not fully understand free markets, so he was hardly qualified to emerge as the most ...
Inflationary financing and GDP
August 16th, 2019
This article demonstrates that only government borrowing in the US and UK drives GDP growth. This surprising conclusion is confirmed by long-run statistics. GDP does not represent economic progress, nor does it include the expansion of activity in ...
Casting off the EU millstone
August 7th, 2019
In this article, we look at the implications of the new Johnson government: its strategy, the likely outcome of EU negotiations, and the golden opportunities to reform trade, tax and monetary policies to secure a better future based ...
The reasoning behind Gold’s breakout
August 1st, 2019
Gold’s dramatic move above $1400 has caught the investment establishment by surprise. Physical gold ETFs, as a proxy for direct portfolio investment, amount to only 0.05% of the estimated $250 trillion of global investment values. As well as ...
Stalling Markets
July 22nd, 2019
The combination of American trade protectionism and the end of a failing credit expansion is leading into a global economic downturn, and potentially a systemic crisis. Meanwhile, investors still believe more extreme monetary policies will stabilise economies and ...
A whale is accumulating silver futures
July 12th, 2019
Silver’s recent price performance has been disappointing. Normally, it is almost twice as volatile as gold, so when the gold price rises 11%, as it has since last December, you would expect silver to rise about 20%. Instead it ...
