Fed Drives S&P 500 To Record Levels, Economic Fundamentals Still Soft
Holiday sales look flat. While online sales were up, sales at traditional retailers were lackluster. Penney’s, Kohl’s, L Brands, Macy’s, Urban Outfitters, Bed Bath & Beyond, all reported lower sales vs. a year ago. Meanwhile, in what looks to be a “frugality” or “trade down” movement on the part of the consumer, same store sales at Walmart, Costco, […]
The European Central Bank would be wise to avoid QE
The ECB’s go-slow approach to the establishment of a QE program is both rational and laudable. Read: ECB will prime quantitative easing, but far from pulling trigger yet The QE experiments in the U.S. and Japan are far from over. While “low” inflation is cited as a reason to keep the money creation experiment alive, […]
What’s Inflation? It Depends on the Definition
One of today’s economic myths is that the money that the Federal Reserve has created through its quantitative easing programs has not found its way into the money supply, and, as a result, no significant inflation has occurred. The theory is that QE has only resulted in bank reserve creation, but little new money. Money […]