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Source: Shutterstock Stocks have Rallied Strongly The U.S. stock market just had its best month since 1987 . During April, the S&P 500 gained 12.7%. Since the low on March 23, stocks are up about 30%. This despite a continued torrent of bad economic news, including an enormous increas...
By Philip Lawlor, managing director, Global Markets Research As attention starts to shift towards when and how the lockdown exit will be implemented, there is a litany of important questions and themes that needs to be considered in a post-lockdown world. In this blog, we pose ten question...
Macroeconomists are split on the key issue of inflation versus deflation and there are valid arguments being made on both sides. The debate ultimately boils down to whether the surge in government bond issuance and money printing will continue to be offset by an even greater increase in the wi...
There has been a growing debate regarding whether COVID-19 (and its lasting economic consequences) will promote inflation or deflation. Traditionally, recessions are deflationary, as they cause demand to decline while supply is unchanged. However, this recession is far from traditional in that...
Should we worry about government debt? That was the question recently posed by Ben Carlson, who laid out several arguments as to why spiraling government debt may not matter. To wit : "Is this debt so unsustainable it's going to wreck future generations and leave them holding the bag? Ar...
Writing for the Brookings Up Front blog, Stuart Butler and Timothy Higashi urge fiscal policymakers to look beyond the current crisis. Extraordinary short-term spending is justified, they agree, but, they urge that "we also need to put in place - ideally as part of ongoing stimulus measures ...
The increasing concentration of the ownership of wealth/assets in the top 10% has an under-appreciated consequence : when only the top 10% can afford to buy assets, that unleashes an almost karmic payback for the narrowing of ownership, a.k.a. soaring wealth and income inequality: assets cra...
Judging by the stock market, the odds are rising for a reflationary run. Economic data, however, offer a conflicting view. Let's start with stocks, everyone's favorite discounting machine for guesstimating the future. The S&P 500 Index, after plunging last month at the steepest, fastest ...
10-year Treasury rates are already low, but they are on the cusp of going even lower. The printing of money and the contracting economy will be blamed for the disinflationary forces that are now bestowed upon us, and that will send rates on the 10-year to nearly 0%. It seems like a wild idea...
Just where was the fire that caused the Federal Reserve to buy $1.3 trillion of treasury debt in a month -- financing all treasury sales and then some? I've been puzzling about this question in a few posts. Commenter "unknown" impolitely but usefully points me to a nice paper by Andreas Schri...