Tag Archives: money trap
We remain stuck in a bad money trap: why?
The media support soft money Ten years after publication of my book, and on both sides of the Atlantic, national economies are still in the grip of the bad money trap. How depressing. How debilitating. Asset prices are sky high. Wages are sinking in real terms. All because of bad money policies that I analysed…
» Continue Reading
The turning point for gold – now what?
Following my last post on gold, I got several comments: for and against. One said that the real reason gold has come back over the past 10 years is that central banks have stopped selling and started buying again. Indeed! Net gold purchases by central banks in 2012 were 534 tonnes –…
» Continue Reading
Good riddance to inflation targets
As predicted in The Money Trap, governments and central banks are preparing to ditch the inflation target regime of monetary policy. Hilariously if predictably, they are insisting that it has succeeded – but that it is time to move on. So long as they bury their heads in the sand like this, no…
» Continue Reading
Why gold is back
In investment terms, we face a scenario that says neither bonds nor equities are likely to rise. The ‘uncertainty’ is greater than ever. And it is ‘uncertainty’ that drives people into gold, not relative values in paper currencies. We have to think that gold is the central thing around which everything else moves….
» Continue Reading
Banks that go bust
One of the lessons of FinCR (financial crisis and recession) is clear. We have to get better at stress-testing. That is, we have to understand better than we did what circumstances can push banks over the edge into insolvency, and how regulators can spot weak banks in advance. Or so the story goes. The…
» Continue Reading
Hypocrisy does not help
The financial crisis that began on this date in August 2007 has not ended. It continues, and will continue so long as policy-makers and economists fail to learn its lessons. Instead, what we have is a mountain of hypocrisy. Almost everybody is being economical with the truth. This applies to central bankers, financial regulators and…
» Continue Reading
Nicolas Krul writes:
Picking up on Robert’s last story, we must look to the ECB to restore trust in financial intermediation. Yes, the developed world faces another year of stagnation and interacting imbalances that amplify risk aversion and spread the fear of spending. But there is no surprise in the new setback. With budgets in disarray and rising…
» Continue Reading