The IMF has recently released its Global Financial Stability report. Two figures inspired two questions from me.
Category Archives: financial markets
The Last Throes of PoMo Macro?
Hedge fund regulation
Fed Chair Ben Bernanke yesterday explained why he sees no need for increased regulation of hedge funds.
The Subprime collapse and the housing market: a bubble or “looting”
Jim Hamilton’s recent post “Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble” elicited a tremendous amount of commentary — and incredulity — amongst the readers.
Maybe we can’t count on exorbitant privilege/dark matter/manna from heaven…
The new conventional wisdom is that the return foreigners obtain on U.S. assets is less than the return U.S. residents obtain on foreign assets. And that this means that the U.S. can build up a bigger foreign debt than traditional analyses; I’ve been skeptical [1], [2]. Now, we have more reason to ask how robust is the finding of a durable earnings differential in favor of U.S. investors?
San Diego city pension fund
I earlier described some disturbing details about the assets held by the San Diego County Employees Retirement Association. Our separate pension fund for city employees, the San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System, is another tale of local woe that I worry may have global implications.
Negative Net Income: The 2006 Balance of Payments
Most commentary on the 2006q4 current account balance release focused on the improvement in the overall balance. Little noted is the fact that 2006 is the first year in which the net income category has registered negative.
The Term Spread, Cross Country
How does the term spread correlate with recession in other economies?
Fannie, Freddie, and Ben
Fed Chair Ben Bernanke had some excellent suggestions last week for congressional action on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
WMDs in Iraq, “Last throes…” and… “deficits don’t matter”
According to former Secretary of Treasury Paul O’Neill, Dick Cheney is reputed to have said: “…deficits don’t matter.”
(see Suskind’s The Price of Loyalty, and online here). What’s the (updated) evidence?