April 27, 2018

Is the Petrodollar on Its Way Out?

Investment banks typically group bonds, currencies, and commodities into one business segment: FICC (fixed-income, currencies, and commodities).  The three are inextricably linked in economic terms. For much of the nineteenth century and...

April 24, 2015

Negative convexity, elections, and crony capitalism

In February 1996, President Bill Clinton nominated Alan Greenspan for a third term as Fed chief. Accommodating monetary policy during Clinton’s first four years in office led to a booming stock market, which helped Clinton get re-elected. I...

August 29, 2014

Is the Petrodollar on its Way?

In The Death of Money, James Rickards contends that the “international monetary system has collapsed three times in the past hundred years, in 1914, 1939 and 1971.” He's right about 1914 and 1939, but wrong about 1971. In 1971, there ...

October 11, 2013

Oh, and By the Way...We're Broke

Soon, President Obama and Congress will agree to terms on raising the statutory debt limit, or the "debt ceiling."  What will not be mentioned in the negotiations, however, is that the United States of America is bankrupt. In a 2011 discu...

April 16, 2012

High Gas Prices and The Fed

On Saturday night's Fox News special "Paying at the Pump," host Eric Bolling offered a "Top Secret" plan to bring down the high cost of gasoline. Mr. Bolling insisted that the government should significantly raise margin requirements on oil traders i...

June 7, 2011

The Federal Reserve and Financial Repression

Pacific Investment Management Company co-founder Bill Gross is starting to talk about what "financial repression" means for the bond markets, which America has not seen since the darkest days of the 1930's when the term was first used.  I'm star...