It is worth linking to this important point. If it doesn’t hurt, you aren’t signalling. Which reminds me about the advice we gave about gift picks last year! In this sense the gift means more than just the sheer value of the present itself – it also provides information and signalling value that is used […]
Here read this: Yes, if the central bank raises or lowers interest rates, this will affect financial markets. But I thought we had gone beyond thinking of monetary policy in terms of raising or lowering interest rates. Or buying or selling bonds in an open market operation. Or raising or lowering the money supply. Or […]
Via Bernard Hickey I saw this speech by Adair Turner about monetary policy in the UK. Let us give it some context – the UK has had their cash rate at virtually zero for some time, and many analysts over there have been screaming hyperinflation and showing that they do not understand the purpose of […]
Warning: I’m not an economist in this post. I’m telling you what I think, don’t expect me to be nice as I’m not intending to be. If it insults you I’m sorry, take it as a representation of my depth of feeling around the issue rather than a sledging if you can. Let me start […]
As a starting point – thank you Statistics New Zealand for all your tasty data. First a graph of the deviation of per capita NGDP from its 1994-2011 trend (took out the 1991-1993 period due to the structural changes taking place) – comparing the last ANZSIC 1996 data (Dec 2011) to the September ANZSIC 2006 […]
Since everyone is talking about the drop in manufacturing output and employment and trying to figure out “how to fix it” I thought I’d pull out the old comparative advantage card to show why it may not be a problem. In case you are wondering what it is, Wikipedia is always rock and roll. New […]