A serial accumulation of memory, incident, consideration, reconsideration, personal discovery and attempts at truth.
It is intended for my attention and that of other interested persons
If that changes, I will extensively re-edit.
Warning:
I attempt to use inductive logic.
This is the week we’re supposed to hear the ECB’s plan for monetary expansion; the German media are already howling,
with Bild warning that Draghi’s expected actions will reduce the
pressure for reform in “crisis-hit countries such as Spain, Greece,
Italy, or France.” Above are European long-term interest rates as of
close of business yesterday.
So, first of all, look
at “crisis-hit” France; investors are so worried about France that they
won’t hold its bonds unless offered, um, 0.64 percent, the lowest rate
in history. But never mind — everyone knows that the French must be in
crisis, because they still believe in social insurance, and besides,
they’re French.
Notice also that
crisis-hit Spain is now paying a lower interest rate than Britain. It’s
surely a higher interest rate in real terms, because Spain faces the
prospect of years of deflation. But this should — but won’t — put an end
to all the talk about how low British rates are the reward for
austerity, and so on.
More generally, those
very low rates reflect market expectations that (a) the European economy
will remain very weak and (b) that the ECB will continue to fall far
short of its inflation target. German 5-year bonds are yielding minus
0.05 percent; index bonds of the same maturity are yielding -0.44
percent. So the market is saying both that there are very few good
investment opportunities out there — few enough that paying the German
government to protect the real value of your wealth is a good move — and
that inflation over the next five years will be around 0.4 percent, not
the target of 2 percent.
Will the QE policy
turn this around? Unless it’s shockingly larger and more aggressive than
expected, it’s hard to see how. Unconventional monetary policy works,
if it does, largely by changing expectations; but the markets know this
is coming, and are notably unimpressed.
Oh, and the markets don’t believe that the US is immune to these ills. Market expectations of inflation, as embodied in the 5-year break-even,
have fallen off a cliff — it’s a bigger decline than the one that
preceded the beginning of QE2 in 2010. Fed officials seem weirdly
complacent about this, and about the risk that we, too, could find
ourselves in a low-inflation trap.
This holiday does not fully belong in the most profound ways to many Americans, and to some, it does not belong at all.
Blacks; Civil Rights and Liberties; Civil Rights Movement (1954-68);
Discrimination; Human Rights and Human Rights Violations; Race and
Ethnicity; Segregation and Desegregation
Moriah Jefferson had 15 points, 7 assists and 6 rebounds to lead No. 2 Connecticut to a 92-50 victory over South Florida.
Basketball (College)
"“We have some pretty good teams in our league,” UConn Coach Geno
Auriemma said. “It’s just that sometimes, with us being in the league,
they don’t get a chance to show it.”"
The shooting in the Guangxi region occurred when a van carrying
five Uighurs refused to stop and members of the group resisted arrest
with knives, the state news media reported.
The ride-hailing service’s chief executive, Travis Kalanick, says
he wants to work with politicians to find ways for the company to
operate legally across the European Union.
The five most prominent conferences in college sports voted to
increase their scholarships to cover athletes’ full cost of attendance,
which is typically several thousand dollars more than colleges currently
provide.
College Athletics; Colleges and Universities; Scholarships and Fellowships
Technology start-ups with websites that sell many types of
insurance and promise savings with comparison shopping are putting
pressure on insurance agents, who collect commissions.
Advertising and Marketing; Homeowners Insurance; Automobile
Insurance and Liability; Renter's Insurance; Online Advertising;
E-Commerce
Instead of taking to the streets, two groups have used airplanes
to make sure their political and sports-related points receive plenty of
neck-craning attention.
Edwin Andrews of the MGH Clinical Research Center at Massachusetts
General Hospital writes that our progress in scientific research “is
being slowed by Congress’s parsimony.”
By DANIEL E. SLOTNIK and VIVIAN YEE | Jan 18th 2015
Freezing rain conditions created a backlog of emergency medical
calls for the Fire Department in New York City. Hundreds of accidents
were reported across the region.
Delays (Transportation); Transit Systems; Roads and Traffic; Buses
There are at least four crucial issues the president should mention in his speech that affect our health. But will he?
Food; Food Stamps; Income; Global Warming; Wages and Salaries;
Income Inequality; United States Politics and Government; Antibiotics;
Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Labeling and Labels
"Never tell the king what he may do. Always tell the king what he must do."
One line.
(Some large percentage) of our nation is hungry and cold.
The first federal effort to regulate the gas directly will put a dent in harmful emissions. But only a dent.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Methane; Editorials; Global Warming;
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry; Natural Gas; Oil (Petroleum)
and Gasoline; Air Pollution
By ANNE BARNARD and SOMINI SENGUPTA | Jan 19th 2015
American support for two diplomatic initiatives in Syria
underscores the West’s quiet retreat from its demand that Bashar
al-Assad step down immediately.
This is the week we’re supposed to hear the ECB’s plan for monetary expansion; the German media are already howling,
with Bild warning that Draghi’s expected actions will reduce the
pressure for reform in “crisis-hit countries such as Spain, Greece,
Italy, or France.” Above are European long-term interest rates as of
close of business yesterday.
So, first of all, look
at “crisis-hit” France; investors are so worried about France that they
won’t hold its bonds unless offered, um, 0.64 percent, the lowest rate
in history. But never mind — everyone knows that the French must be in
crisis, because they still believe in social insurance, and besides,
they’re French.
Notice also that
crisis-hit Spain is now paying a lower interest rate than Britain. It’s
surely a higher interest rate in real terms, because Spain faces the
prospect of years of deflation. But this should — but won’t — put an end
to all the talk about how low British rates are the reward for
austerity, and so on.
More generally, those
very low rates reflect market expectations that (a) the European economy
will remain very weak and (b) that the ECB will continue to fall far
short of its inflation target. German 5-year bonds are yielding minus
0.05 percent; index bonds of the same maturity are yielding -0.44
percent. So the market is saying both that there are very few good
investment opportunities out there — few enough that paying the German
government to protect the real value of your wealth is a good move — and
that inflation over the next five years will be around 0.4 percent, not
the target of 2 percent.
Will the QE policy
turn this around? Unless it’s shockingly larger and more aggressive than
expected, it’s hard to see how. Unconventional monetary policy works,
if it does, largely by changing expectations; but the markets know this
is coming, and are notably unimpressed.
Oh, and the markets don’t believe that the US is immune to these ills. Market expectations of inflation, as embodied in the 5-year break-even,
have fallen off a cliff — it’s a bigger decline than the one that
preceded the beginning of QE2 in 2010. Fed officials seem weirdly
complacent about this, and about the risk that we, too, could find
ourselves in a low-inflation trap.
OK,
arrived in Hong Kong, and IT is working a lot better. So let me weigh
in a bit more on the Swiss miss. Basically, my take is the same as Brad DeLong’s: what we have here is a central bank that let itself be bullied by the balance sheet bugaboo brigade.
The way to think about
the franc peg, I’d argue, is to view currency intervention as
essentially a form of quantitative easing. What we mean by QE is
open-market operations in which the central bank buys stuff other than
the usual purchases of short-term government debt. This could be
long-term assets, it could be private-sector debt, or it could be
foreign securities. Obviously the channels of influence depend to some
extent on which route you choose, although remember that the Fed was
accused of waging currency war when it was only purchasing domestic
assets, and the main clear effect of Abenomics so far has run through
the exchange rate. But the main point is to think of any kind of
non-Treasury-bill open market operation as a form of QE.
This in turn helps us
put the explicit exchange rate target into the right slot: it was about
making QE effective through commitment, so that you got the maximum
impact on expectations. Actually, the success of the currency program
suggests that other central banks might want to try things like setting a
ceiling on some long-term interest rate.
But back to
Switzerland: they had a policy that was working, so why did they stop?
And the answer, Brad and I both suspect, is that the SNB, like the Fed,
faced constant pressure from finance types saying “Your balance sheet is
too big! Debasement! Inflation! Unnatural monetary acts! Francisco
d’Anconia!” But unlike the Fed, the SNB lacked the intellectual
self-confidence (and perhaps the institutional strength, seeing as how
it’s partially privately owned) to stand up to that pressure.
The irony is that
having been bullied into worrying about its own profitability, which is
not what central banks should do, the SNB ended up imposing huge losses
on itself. But that’s neither here nor there for Swiss national
interests. The main thing is that the credibility essential to getting
traction at the zero lower bound has been dissipated for Switzerland,
and damaged for everyone else."
OK,
arrived in Hong Kong, and IT is working a lot better. So let me weigh
in a bit more on the Swiss miss. Basically, my take is the same as Brad DeLong’s: what we have here is a central bank that let itself be bullied by the balance sheet bugaboo brigade.
The way to think about
the franc peg, I’d argue, is to view currency intervention as
essentially a form of quantitative easing. What we mean by QE is
open-market operations in which the central bank buys stuff other than
the usual purchases of short-term government debt. This could be
long-term assets, it could be private-sector debt, or it could be
foreign securities. Obviously the channels of influence depend to some
extent on which route you choose, although remember that the Fed was
accused of waging currency war when it was only purchasing domestic
assets, and the main clear effect of Abenomics so far has run through
the exchange rate. But the main point is to think of any kind of
non-Treasury-bill open market operation as a form of QE.
This in turn helps us
put the explicit exchange rate target into the right slot: it was about
making QE effective through commitment, so that you got the maximum
impact on expectations. Actually, the success of the currency program
suggests that other central banks might want to try things like setting a
ceiling on some long-term interest rate.
But back to
Switzerland: they had a policy that was working, so why did they stop?
And the answer, Brad and I both suspect, is that the SNB, like the Fed,
faced constant pressure from finance types saying “Your balance sheet is
too big! Debasement! Inflation! Unnatural monetary acts! Francisco
d’Anconia!” But unlike the Fed, the SNB lacked the intellectual
self-confidence (and perhaps the institutional strength, seeing as how
it’s partially privately owned) to stand up to that pressure.
The irony is that
having been bullied into worrying about its own profitability, which is
not what central banks should do, the SNB ended up imposing huge losses
on itself. But that’s neither here nor there for Swiss national
interests. The main thing is that the credibility essential to getting
traction at the zero lower bound has been dissipated for Switzerland,
and damaged for everyone else."
A professor developed a measure for sarcasm by Supreme Court
members, and Justice Antonin Scalia dwarfed the showings of every
justice he has served with.
The Obama administration is using social media to reach new
audiences for the State of the Union speech, sidestepping the skeptical
filter often applied by White House reporters.
State of the Union Message (US); Social Media; Computers and the Internet; News and News Media
The appellate division of the State Supreme Court sided with an
outdoors journalist who was sued, and could open up miles of waterways
across New York State to paddlers.
Suits and Litigation (Civil); Decisions and Verdicts; Land Use Policies; Canoes and Canoeing
While Davos has long hosted controversial conversations, the issue
of gay rights had seemed off limits at the World Economic Forum. This
year, it’s on the official agenda.
Hedge Funds; Homosexuality and Bisexuality; Human Rights and Human
Rights Violations; Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions and Domestic
Partnerships; Transgender and Transsexuals
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