Recession better than inflation ?
December 17, 2022346 interest rate hikes have taken place to date around the world, an absolute record since the 1980s ! The only weapon to counter inflation is for the key rate of a central bank to exceed the rate of inflation by around 150 basis points, knowing that this rate must be maintained at these…
Japan: a sleeping beauty
September 1, 2020On the macroeconomic scale, Japan is a laboratory, but it’s also a cemetery where economists and theorists have had to bury their certainties. I salute the determination of Prime Minister Abe on his departure, having not shied away from any decision or measure in pulling his country out of the lethargy that it has…
May this crisis be an opportunity!
June 15, 2020For the common good, but also purely and simply for the preservation of capitalism, this crisis must be got to grips with because the cause and effect relationship between the accumulation of debt and inequalities is, for me, at the source of it all. The fact is that the drop in debt for the…
700 years of interest rates to predict the future
June 8, 2020The bankers of Florence – the inventors of modern finance –imposed a two-figure interest rate in return for their loans. The usurer Shylock, in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, was happy with 8%, whereas this service charge on debt had fallen to around 4% at the start of World War One, and is now at…
A major challenge of our time
April 21, 2019Where has inflation gone? While the US enjoys one of its longest periods of economic expansion, and while it is pretty much at full employment with its best figures for fifty years, inflation is nevertheless miniscule. Will it one day make its return to our developed nations of integrated economies?
Gold, Conservatives and Conspiracy Theory
April 2, 2019Stephen Moore, who was appointed by Donald Trump to the board of governors of the US Federal Reserve, is one of those who sees gold as the ultimate refuge. He has just stated that yellow metal prices are expected to rise to $ 2,000 an ounce and that any prudent investor should maintain a…
The US: a rate cut to come ?
January 5, 2019The US Federal Reserve, as we know, is in the process of “normalising” its monetary policy stance. That means it’s committed to gradually raising its guideline rates, after the extreme efforts during the finance crisis that led to quantitative easing. After increasing its rates four times in 2018, it has just announced two or three…
No economic recovery without political courage
June 20, 2017Seven years of growth, and three rates rises in a few months. But the US economy is nevertheless at the dawning of a recession! In spite of the monetary policy which seems to be on its way to normalisation, interest rates will never be – when the next, imminent crisis comes about – at levels…
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…