Monthly Archives: October 2011

Harvey Rosenblum, Executive VP & Director of Research at the Dallas Fed, has slides available from his presentation to the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. The first great chart is his dashboard view: Yikes.  Unemployment too high, spreads blowing out, … Continue reading →

As economists or macro-speculators, we try very hard to find indications of behaviour changes, particularly in the marginal propensity to consume, invest or save. Consider the y/y %-growth of revolving credit and real retail sales, and then further, the difference … Continue reading →

Really stretched.  The bottom histogram is the percentage which the 10y yield deviates from its 10y (linear regression) trend. We’ve only been here once before, during the height of the credit crisis in late 2008/early 2009. Even if you’re bearish … Continue reading →

Total European Debt:GDP shows a substantially different story than the typical narrative of the foolish profligate Europeans most commonly spoken now. As a matter of fact, in the 2.5 years leading up to the global financial crisis, it sunk a … Continue reading →

Much like a theme needs orchestration & arrangement to be fully realised in music, so to does it in our portfolios…. Up until recently, we hadn’t done much on macro portfolio strategy.  We’ve decided to open the black box a … Continue reading →

How’d that trickle-down thing work out? Jared Bernstein via Mark Thoma takes a swipe at supply-side economics with this chart with this amusing comment: I prefer trickle-up policies. Give working class households more money — tax cuts, helicopter drops, whatever … Continue reading →

We’ve done work on consumer credit at Macrofugue a few times before.  We were amongst the first to forecast a positive number late last year, and further examined the substantial relationship between employment and credit growth in February. The past … Continue reading →