What IS a ‘Market’?

In response to an FT article of January 23rd entitled, “The new kings of the bond market”, which suggested that banks had ceded their command over fixed income to exchange-traded funds and active portfolio traders, we responded with a riff on the sorry consequences of recent financial developments: a bromide which turned out to be singularly well-timed in view of the extraordinary upheavals suffered just a few, short weeks later:-

Continue reading

Easy Money, Hard Times

Though the connexion is not always explicitly drawn, one obvious corollary of the perceived current shortfall in corporate investment spending is to be found in the lacklustre nature of the gains being recorded in something called ‘productivity’.

This latter deficiency is often said to have ‘puzzled’ the Good and Great who presume to be able to influence such matters for the better, but one can readily identify factors which implicate the policies of those same would-be helmsmen of the economy, themselves, in the discouragement they offer for capital formation and by the incentives they afford for less than ideal practices among businesses, consumers, and governments, alike.

For a downloadable PDF version of this article, please click: 17-10-27 Easy Money

Continue reading