Mon 2010-08-23 11:11 EDT

Hussman Funds - Valuing Foreign Currencies: Currency is both a means of payment and a store of value. [2000-09-22]

John P. Hussman, Ph.D

Any currency is both a means of payment and a store of value. So when you try to determine what it's worth, you have to consider both what it can buy in terms of goods, and what it can earn if you hold it as an asset. An exchange rate is just the price of a currency...If you look at a currency as a means of exchange...you can get a reasonable idea of the "long term" tendency of the currency by tracking the movements of price indices in two countries. This is what traders refer to as the "Purchasing Power Parity" (PPP) value of the exchange rate...But PPP is only a tendency that holds loosely over the long term. Over the short term, there's another important factor: interest rates...anytime long term interest rates, after inflation (i.e. real interest rates) are expected to be higher in the foreign country than in the U.S., the foreign currency will be above PPP...

2000-09-22; currency; Hussman Funds; meaning; payment; store; valued; Valuing Foreign Currencies.

Thu 2010-07-22 10:39 EDT

A Dual Mandate for the Federal Reserve, The Pursuit of Price Stability and Full Employment

Willem Thorbecke (2000)

Federal Reserve currently has two legislated goals--price stability and full employment--but a debate continues about making price stability the Fed's primary and overriding goal. Evidence from the recent history of monetary policy contradicts arguments in favor of assigning primacy to inflation fighting and supports giving full employment equal importance. Economic performance under the dual mandate has been excellent, with low unemployment and low inflation, while many European countries whose central banks focus solely on inflation are experiencing double-digit unemployment. The costs of unemployment are high, but the costs of even moderate inflation are estimated to be low. Central bankers, who tend to be inflation-averse, need to be prodded to consider goals other than inflation. And, if the Fed pursues price stability exclusively, the price level is not free to increase in the event of an adverse supply shock to prevent large increases in unemployment. A dual mandate allows the Fed to focus on one goal or the other as conditions demand and to balance policy effects.

dual mandate; Federal Reserve; full employment; priced stabilize; pursuit.

zero hedge Sun 2010-04-25 14:23 EDT

Exclusive: Second Whistleblower Emerges - A Deep Insider's Walkthru To Silver Market Manipulation

A second whistleblower speaks. As the topic of physical delivery has gained prominent attention recently, it is crucial to complete the circle and show how this weakest link in the PM market is (ab)used by the big boys: Phibro and Warren Buffet. Pay particular attention to the analogues between the methods employed in the 90's commodity market and how the PM (and equity) market is being gamed currently. And to think that each new generation of traders believes it has discovered something new...As a market maker in silver options from 1989 to 2000 I was present during both the 1994 and 1997 silver events. They were seminal in my education of gamesmanship in trading and how probabilities can come up short...

Deep Insider's Walkthru; exclusive; Silver Market Manipulation; whistleblower emerging; Zero Hedge.

Sun 2010-02-07 10:10 EST

Web of Debt - THE BATTLE OF THE TITANS: JPMORGAN VS. GOLDMAN SACHS

Ellen Brown

The late Libertarian economist Murray Rothbard wrote that U.S. politics since 1900, when William Jennings Bryan narrowly lost the presidency, has been a struggle between two competing banking giants, the Morgans and the Rockefellers. The parties would sometimes change hands, but the puppeteers pulling the strings were always one of these two big-money players...In 2000, the Rockefellers and the Morgans joined forces, when JPMorgan and Chase Manhattan merged to become JPMorgan Chase Co. Today the battling banking titans are JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, an investment bank that gained notoriety for its speculative practices in the 1920s...Goldman's superpower status comes from something more than just access to the money spigots of the banking system. It actually has the ability to manipulate markets...But Goldman Sachs has been caught in this blatant market manipulation so often that the JPMorgan faction of the banking empire has finally had enough.

battle; debt; Goldman Sachs; JPMorgan; titans; Web.

zero hedge Tue 2010-01-05 19:26 EST

Roubini Blasts "The Barbarous Relic," Recommends Spam Over Gold

In a headline piece on roubini.com, Nouriel Roubini writes an extended article slamming both gold bugs, and the so-called gold bubble, which he believes is far too volatile, and which, contrary to ever increasing claims to the opposite, will likely not get to the mythical price of $2000/ounce, and instead will head lower. The argument presented, as is widely the case, boils down to the trifecta of i)gold having no industrial utility, ii) no intrinsic value (no associated cash flow streams) and iii) costing an arm and a leg to store. While Roubini's thesis is attractive on the surface (if somewhat Keynesian and thus often reiterated by mainstream Economists), we present some counter arguments to Roubini's thesis.

barbaric relic; gold; Recommends Spam; Roubini blast; Zero Hedge.

The Big Picture Mon 2009-10-12 10:03 EDT

Fixing Derivatives Regulation

Any plan that seeks to reverse the unregulated wild west that derivatives have existed in since 2000 must have a simple beginning: Repeal the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. This ruinous and corrupt legislation, pushed through by the Bonnie & Clyde of deivatives, Enron Board member Wendy Gramm, and her astonishingly clueless ideologue husband, former Texas Senator (and current UBS member) Phil Gramm, lay at the heart of the current derivatives debacle. After Greenspan, Gramm is the single most culpable individual in terms of damaging the global economy.

Big Picture; Fixing Derivatives Regulation.

naked capitalism Sun 2009-09-20 09:48 EDT

Guest Post: ``Assessing the Recent Performance of the Fed''

Richard Alford, former economist at the New York Fed

...the current Fed: 1) actively promoted the asset bubbles which precipitated the most costly business downturn since the Great depression; 2) passively sat by ignoring its regulatory and supervisory responsibilities allowing the growth of imbalances that led to the worst business downturn since the Great depression...the economic and financial imbalances that built up between 2000 and 2007 will generate the opportunity costs in terms of lost output and idle and misallocated resources that will exceed the costs inherent in the economic and financial imbalances reflected in the most expensive anti-inflation fight ever fought by the Fed (1980-1983). The US financial system remains on life support. Furthermore, the Fed has played a part in allocating credit and in engineering redistributions of wealth on a scale that is likely to on the same scale as the redistribution of wealth from the household sector to government during the inflation ridden 1970s. The independence of the Fed has been compromised. Many in the Congress want to audit the Fed and limit its ability to make loans in future emergencies. The Fed is seen by many as an agency of the Treasury.

assessment; Fed; Guest Post; naked capitalism; recent perform.

Jesse's Café Américain Thu 2009-08-20 16:16 EDT

China Makes Biggest Cut in US Treasury Assets Since 2000

Jesse

One has to wonder how long the UK, Japan and the US can keep supporting each other's crony capitalist oligopolies. China DailyChina cuts US Treasury holdings in June2009-08-18NEW YORK: China reduced its holdings of US Treasury debt in June by the biggest margin in nearly nine years, according to a US Treasury Department report issued on Monday.China cut its net holdings by 3.1 percent to $776.4

2000; China Makes Biggest Cut; Jesse's Café Américain; treasury assets.

Jesse's Café Américain Thu 2009-08-20 16:11 EDT

China Makes Biggest Cut in US Treasury Assets Since 2000

Jesse

One has to wonder how long the UK, Japan and the US can keep supporting each other's crony capitalist oligopolies. China DailyChina cuts US Treasury holdings in June2009-08-18NEW YORK: China reduced its holdings of US Treasury debt in June by the biggest margin in nearly nine years, according to a US Treasury Department report issued on Monday.China cut its net holdings by 3.1 percent to $776.4

2000; China Makes Biggest Cut; Jesse's Café Américain; treasury assets.

Jesse's Café Américain Thu 2009-08-20 16:11 EDT

China Makes Biggest Cut in US Treasury Assets Since 2000

Jesse

One has to wonder how long the UK, Japan and the US can keep supporting each other's crony capitalist oligopolies. China DailyChina cuts US Treasury holdings in June2009-08-18NEW YORK: China reduced its holdings of US Treasury debt in June by the biggest margin in nearly nine years, according to a US Treasury Department report issued on Monday.China cut its net holdings by 3.1 percent to $776.4

2000; China Makes Biggest Cut; Jesse's Café Américain; treasury assets.

Jesse's Café Américain Thu 2009-08-20 16:07 EDT

China Makes Biggest Cut in US Treasury Assets Since 2000

Jesse

One has to wonder how long the UK, Japan and the US can keep supporting each other's crony capitalist oligopolies. China DailyChina cuts US Treasury holdings in June2009-08-18NEW YORK: China reduced its holdings of US Treasury debt in June by the biggest margin in nearly nine years, according to a US Treasury Department report issued on Monday.China cut its net holdings by 3.1 percent to $776.4

2000; China Makes Biggest Cut; Jesse's Café Américain; treasury assets.

Sun 2008-08-24 00:00 EDT

Safe Haven | The Elusive Bottom

Safehaven | The Elusive Bottom, by Merrill-Lynch economist David A. Rosenberg; predicting lengthy recession, secular bear market dating from 2000, eventual bullish indicators include savings rate above 8%, housing supply below 8 months, household interest coverage below 10.5%; frugality is in; bullish on bonds

elusive bottom; safe haven.

Wed 2007-12-19 00:00 EST

Money Matters: World Markets Struggle As China Tightens Credit

by Elaine Meinel Supkis; Bush v. Gore inside observation; 2000 presidential election stolen

China tighten credit; money matters; World Markets Struggle.