As promised, in this episode of Cantillon Effects, I have considered in much more detail whether there is such a thing as a ‘Consumer’ in isolation? I ask if a person’s role as producer is not more important. I look at the part played by interest rates, capital, and entrepreneurs, as well as by the state. I argue that worship of that False God – the ‘Consumer’ – not only slows economic progress in general and encourages heavy-handed and often harmful policies of intervention but also that it leads directly to the wastefulness of Boom and Bust. [To listen instead to Part I and Part II of my podcast on this, please go to CantillonCH at SoundCloud, or search Apple Podcasts here and here and Spotify for ‘Cantillon Effects’] Continue reading
Tag Archives: profits
Shifting Sands
There are signs that not only is money beginning to circulate more rapidly through cash registers everywhere, but that Corporate America is beginning to make good some of its recent, much-cited lack of physical investment and, conversely, is starting to eschew some of its contemporary over-indulgence in financial engineering.
It may be early days to be jumping to overly grand conclusions, but the last few quarters’ trend nonetheless bears watching. Continue reading
A recent miscellany
Does it make sense to plot multi-decade asset prices on a linear scale? How reliable are macro ‘profit’ estimates? Why is the curve flattening and what will a reduction in Central Bank reserve balances mean for assets?
S0me recent short snaps from my LinkedIn & Twitter feeds plus you can watch my latest update ‘China: Unbalanced’ here, on YouTube Continue reading
Patterns, Predictions & the PMI
Certain schools of thought – among them the so-called ‘Market Monetarists’, as well as George Selgin’s Fractional Free Bankers – believe – in line with the thinking of the later Hayek – that the Fed would be better off effecting policy with regard to the maintenance of a steady rate of growth of nominal GDP.
Consciously or otherwise, we would argue that this is largely what it has done, over the years, and that this insight helps us tie together developments in the PMI, in business income streams, and in the Fed funds rate.
Please click the link for the details
Now where was I?
After a hiatus of several months, I have resumed publication of the newly-titled ‘Money, Macro & Markets Monitor‘ under the auspices of Cantillon Consulting.
Please click the link for a complimentary copy:- 17-05-25 M4 No 1
Give us another Oil boom
Dear Lord, Y’all give us another oil boom…
If there is one sector of the US economy where an Austrian-style Boom-and-Bust bust has taken place, it is the onshore oil industry – though, by extension, other primary resource industries, such as metals and mining and farming have also suffered in the ongoing aftermath of the general commodity bust.