It’s difficult to find a central bank speech or press release that does not implicitly or explicitly uphold the “independence” of the central bank and its conduct of monetary policy. Of course, there are many central banks that have no independence at all, including failed states such as Venezuela and totalitarian states such as
I’ve been involved in international relations and national security longer than I’ve been involved in capital markets. Before attending law school and starting out as a bank lawyer, I got a graduate degree in international affairs in 1974. I’ve closely studied national security threats from the Cold War arms race through Vietnam, the Russian invasion
A regular feature of our selections has consisted of articles in which leading financial elites warn of coming collapses and dangers. We’ve featured such warnings from the IMF’s Christine Lagarde, Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio, the Bank for International Settlements (known as the “central banker’s central bank”) and many other highly regarded sources. Just when we
When I was a kid, a favorite expression was “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” It sounds like the IMF agrees with that approach when it comes to cryptocurrencies. It was not that long ago the IMF was cautioning about cryptocurrency frauds and warning investors to keep away. But in a new speech,
Investors recall that the financial panic of 2008 actually started in 2007 with massive loan losses in subprime mortgages. Those losses caused certain hedge funds and money market funds to close their doors. Investors scrambled for liquidity to cover their mortgage loan losses. This led them to sell equities, bonds and gold to raise
One of the questions I am asked most frequently in my global travels is what will be the cause of the next financial crisis. This question is asked by those who understand that this crisis is coming but want to pin down the date or a specific turn of events that will help them
When the trade wars erupted in early 2018 (after threats by Trump and others as early as 2015), I said that the trade wars would be long-lasting and difficult to resolve and would have significant negative economic impacts. Wall Street took the opposite view and estimated that the trade war threats were mostly for
We’ve written for months about how warnings of economic collapse are no longer confined to the fringes of economic analysis but are now coming from major financial institutions and prominent economists, academics and wealth managers. The latest warning comes from one of the world’s most famous economists, Ken Rogoff, a professor of economics at
In 2017, the financial world was filled with talk of synchronized sustainable growth in major economies for the first time since before the 2008 global financial crisis. This was being proclaimed by global financial elites including Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF. Now that vision is in ashes. As reported in this article, growth is
The recent Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting of Federal Reserve officials made it clear that the Fed is determined to stay on its course of raising rates until the official policy rate reaches 4% in early 2020. As this article shows, the Fed continues to see strong growth and expects inflation, based on the lowest
