The most important job in the world?
September 17, 2020The most coveted job in the world is that of the central banker, who also arouses the hastiest of judgments, all over them like a rash, and sometimes even hate-filled. Vilified for exacerbating inequalities and dragged through the mud for maintaining zero interest rates, it’s only fair that we don’t try to claim bankers…
The future of Europe is going through a rehabilitation of its experts
March 4, 2019Growth since 2009: China +139%, India +96%, the US +34%, Europe –2%. These figures tell the story of the European Union’s spiralling macroeconomic decline. The lack of reactivity of our public policies, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, led to a reduction in imports, with the most hard-hit eurozone countries seeing their balance of…
The central bank of the 21st century
December 17, 2016Central banks hold the key to our economic recovery since they can afford to create money in unlimited quantities, without ever fearing bankruptcy. While they don’t do it deliberately to relaunch growth, it is true that – in their defense – they weren’t founded to regulate public consumption. Their raison d’être has historically been to…
The year zero of Western depression
November 26, 2016Up to the present moment, peace, democratic values and even happiness have been intimately linked to economic growth. It is thus public notoriety that economic depression is the royal path that leads to war, or to extreme and extremist situations and stances in any case. Negative interest rates now seem to be one of the…
Globalisation: R.I.P.
August 10, 2016Globalisation is dead: long live deglobalisation! While Brexit has (fortunately) not been the cataclysm that analysts had so predicted, it is nonetheless the most spectacular manifestation of the end of the reign of globalisation. A revolt against the elites has indeed been brewing – across Western countries – since the crises of the years 2007…
The central bank of the 21st century
May 10, 2016Central banks hold the key to our economic recovery since they can afford to create money in unlimited quantities, without ever fearing bankruptcy. While they don’t do it deliberately to relaunch growth, it is true that – in their defense – they weren’t founded to regulate public consumption. Their raison d’être has historically been to…
The preordained disappearance of cash
February 29, 2016In Sweden, the Church has had to adapt because its followers are carrying less and less cash around with them. It has therefore now become commonplace for churches in places like Stockholm to display their bank details on giant screens during Sunday services, so that church-goers can whip out their phones and make an instant…
Economic Hibernation
February 25, 2016How have we lost our bearings? And why do the right and left – in all Western countries – appear to be applying the same economic policy, with only a few cosmetic nuances in difference? Where are the contentions of old that we used to have and which would pit us against each other? It…
If only the right knew how, or the left was able to
February 19, 2016Negative interest rates appear to be incompatible with our current banking system, because it is the banking institutions which have the most difficulty making profits in an environment of negative rates. It is the very fabric of our economy that has again been shaken as our world sinks further and further into this new paradigm…
You don’t know it but you’re doing very well !
November 25, 2015The Venezuelan stock market has rocketed up by 200% this year and finds itself sitting atop global stock markets in terms of this exceptional performance. Is this to say that Venezuela is enjoying exceptional growth and that its positive repercussions are being felt by its people? Far from it in reality, since unemployment in Venezuela…
The dawning of a monetary and financial cataclysm
October 5, 2015It is the abundance of cash resources which has propelled financial markets, likewise for all assets in general, since 2009. This gigantic reflation, orchestrated to the sound of 10 to 12 trillion dollars being injected into the system, has been the main and fundamental source, having authorised a global assessment, and even euphoria, since certain…
Central banks dining with the devil!
September 16, 2015One after another, every establishment which has the power to print money has joined in on the feast. In the absence of public policies dedicated to openly relaunching growth and battling unemployment, and in the presence of indecisive politicians who are not versed in economics, only central banks have had the ammunition capable of neutralising…