Category Archives: Forex

Positively Natural – Pt IV

by CantillonCH

TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW

So, one last time, let us lay out the argument developed above in the hope of eliminating all obscurity, for it is a pivotal one and therefore one which must be well understood if we are to challenge the very substance of the perilous theorizing of our Lords and Masters.

With positive real rates – which, we must again emphasize, simply imply that the instantaneous price ratio between goods today and goods tomorrow is greater than unity – the primal temptation is for the consumer to eat as much as he can, even including his seed corn, and so to yield to the pleasures of the moment in disregard of the needs of the morrow.

Continue reading …

Positively Natural – Pt III

by CantillonCH

NO REMEDY IN THIS CONSUMPTION OF THE PURSE

But the sort of reasoning we developed in the last of this series is alien to much of today’s mainstream, many of whose members succumb to the long-dispelled, circular fallacies of the productivity argument. Yet more of them adhere to what Dennis Robertson wickedly derided as Keynes’ Cheshire Cat theory of ‘liquidity preference’ (‘The rate of interest is what it is because it is expected to be other than it is. But if it is not expected to be other than it is, there is nothing to tell us why it is what it is… [it is] a grin without a cat’).

Continue reading …

Positively Natural – Pt II

by CantillonCH

THE NET THAT SHALL ENMESH THEM ALL

Now, the foregoing may be all well and good, but it is also the case that any such consignment of goods is open to a multitude of what economists call ‘rivalrous’ uses. If this is not true for that rare, individual batch of highly purpose-specific goods which we may have under consideration in some particular instance it will nonetheless still hold for the earlier, typically less use-constrained goods of which that batch is partially comprised, as well as for the later, more shop-ready goods to which it will in turn give rise and whose own market valuation, as we have seen, will help determine the price of their antecedents

Continue reading …

Positively Natural – Pt I

by CantillonCH

THE CASE FOR POSITIVE INTEREST

                An Austrian rebuttal of Summers et al, in four parts

THE TIME IS OUT OF JOINT

Over the years, any number of psychological experiments have been conducted in order to validate – or at least to give a veneer of academic corroboration to – a truth already well established by practical experience; namely, that we humans must continually struggle to overcome our basic animal instinct to seek instant gratification of our wants.

Continue reading …

Money, Macro & Markets – The Archive

by CantillonCH

Regular readers will know that the articles published here are but a small subset of the detailed work I undertake to analyse economic and political developments and their effects on markets. In order to give some idea of the scope of this, presented below is an archive of past issues of the Austrian School-informed, in-depth monthly publication, ‘Money, Macro & Markets’ in addition to which I compile twice monthly updates as the ‘Midweek Macro Musings’ which are also made available on a complimentary basis to subscribers to the former letter.

Continue reading …

Madness in the Method

by CantillonCH

Seemingly oblivious to the idea of ‘purdah’ – a period of dignified silence to be observed in the run up to the taking of policy decisions—the ECB’s Chief Economist, Peter Praet, felt able to give AFP a wide-ranging interview this week and truly remarkable it was, too.

Continue reading …

Reserve Judgement

by CantillonCH

With regard to the vexed issue of the renminbi, let’s focus on the basics. The official response to July’s stock market collapse saw loans to non-bank financials (the PPT) rise CNY891bln. Many of the recipients, the bailees, took their funds and either moved them abroad or paid back external loans, causing a record CNY242bln efflux.

Continue reading …

The Only Form of Permanence

by CantillonCH

Perhaps the first great lesson of economics, as emphasized by Henry Hazlitt, is that there is no free lunch. The second, courtesy of Frederic Bastiat, is that if it sometimes appears that there is one, it means that we simply have not looked deeply enough into the consequences of our attempt to enjoy it. The third, the joint insight of several generations of Austrians, is that the attempt to buy one for ourselves by resort to monetary manipulation is eventually doomed to fail. A cynic might say that the fourth and final lesson is that no-one ever wishes to abide by the strictures inherent in the first three rules. Continue reading …

Timeo Danaos (et Romanos)

by CantillonCH

It is now largely overlooked, but the 19th century had its own precursor to EMU in the shape of the Latin Monetary Union, set up principally to try to solve the hoary problems of silver:gold bimetallism. But, if much of the Union’s history was dogged by the narrow technical issues of how, firstly, to structure its members’ own monetary system and, thereafter, to align it more closely with those of the non-members, there were other features, too, which are still very much germane today.

Unrealistic expectations, short-term politics, and – as ever – too much debt plagued both Greece and Italy in those days, too, with repercussions for the other LMU members as well as for their trading partners in the wider world.

[The following appears as Chapter II in my book ‘Santayana’s Curse’ available on Kindle]

Continue reading …

Mario Draghi – Prime Broker to the Universe

by CantillonCH

When even the eminent lawyer, Christine Lagarde, interrrupts her incessant calls for more ‘stimulus’ to confess that yes, peut-être, we ought to be on the look out for a bubble or two, you know things have reached a pretty pass.

In truth, the awful effects of monetary overkill on the part of the major central banks seems finally to have reached a critical juncture, with asset markets everywhere spiralling rapidly out of control. We can only shudder to think what will await us if the inflationary spark ever manages to jump the firebreak of bad banks, zombiefied overcapacity, and ruined balance sheets and sets light to the markets for goods and services, too.

Continue reading …