Sat 2010-05-22 13:46 EDT

KOO's "Good News": Nomura Economist Says GDP Needn't Fall In "Balance Sheet Recession"

...Koo's theory and his prescriptions for what currently ails the world are as fascinating as they are unconventional. Considering the woeful track record of orthodox economists (across the entire spectrum from liberal to conservative) in diagnosing, much less treating, the body economic as it has been wracked with credit ills, Koo's fresh perspectives, grounded in the searing experience of Japan's Great Recession, demand careful consideration...

Balance Sheet Recessions; GOOD NEWS; Koo's; Nomura Economist Says GDP Needn't Fall.

Yahoo! Finance: Tech Ticker Tue 2009-10-27 11:18 EDT

Policymakers in "Denial" About the Banks, Carmen Reinhart Says

In "This Time Is Different," economic professors Kenneth Rogoff (Harvard) and Carmen Reinhart (Maryland) examine eight centuries of financial crises, demonstrating how the credit crunch of 2008 wasn't so unique, after all. That's the good news...Reinhart gives policymakers "low marks" for failing to deal head on with toxic assets. There's "a lot of denial" in the approach to the banks, she says, seeing comparisons to Japan's post-bubble policies of delaying write-downs, which created zombie banks. "I'm not seeing a great deal of learning,"

bank; Carmen Reinhart Says; denial; finance; policymaking; Tech Ticker; Yahoo.

Tue 2009-09-29 11:43 EDT

The Post-Bubble Malaise

Mike Whitney

...the Fed is building excess bank reserves (nearly $1 trillion in the last year alone) with the tacit understanding that the banks will return the favor by purchasing Uncle Sam's sovereign debt. It's all very confusing and circular, in keeping with Bernanke's stated commitment to "transparency". What a laugh. The good news is that the trillions in government paper probably won't increase inflation until the economy begins to improve and the slack in capacity is reduced. Then we can expect to get walloped with hyperinflation. But that could be years off. For the foreseeable future, it's all about deflation...The question is, how long can the Obama administration write checks on an account that's overdrawn by $11 trillion (the national debt) before the foreign appetite for US Treasurys wanes and we have a sovereign debt crisis? If the Fed is faking sales of Treasurys to conceal the damage--as I expect it is--we could see the dollar plunge to $2 per euro by the middle of 2010...The consumer is maxed out, private sector activity is in the tank, and government stimulus is the only thing keeping the economy off the meat-wagon. Bernanke might not admit it, but the economy is sinking into post-bubble malaise.

Post bubble malaise.