A deep dive into Zoltan Pozsar’s Bretton Woods III world view
As an addendum to my original note about Zoltan Pozsar’s Friday note, here are my extended thoughts on his Bretton Woods III magnum opus. On commodity basis: Zoltan says: Furthermore, like there is a “base” interest rate (EFFR and the OIS curve that springs from it) and a basis between that base rate and other […]
Russia’s special “K” account operation echoes communist practices
There’s a very reasonable counter narrative going around to the whole Russia is demanding roubles thing. It argues this is more a reserve management story than it is anything else. And this would be correct. Ultimately it doesn’t matter what currency a country demands for its exports. The buyer just goes to the FX market […]
“You can print money, but not oil to heat or wheat to eat”
There’s a new Zoltan Pozsar of Credit Suisse report out… and he starts off by saying: …you can print money, but not oil to heat or wheat to eat. I’m so glad because this rather obvious point seems to be completely missed by economists and analysts for unknown reasons. Nor do they seem to get […]
In the Blind Spot on Thursday (Media, Roubles, Satoshi )
Finance, markets etc.. Germany takes a step towards rationing over payment stand-off with Russia. Why is nobody talking about the fact that Russia is demanding gold for payments. [Here’s the release from the Bank of Russia on March 28 noting that they will be buying gold at 5,000 roubles per gram.] Putin says Russia will […]
In the Blind spot on Tuesday (Eurodollars, Roubles, Inflation)
Finance, markets etc… A chart to behold, courtesy of Steve Englander at Standard Chartered: As Englander notes in his Tuesday commentary: …the Eurodollar rates curve two to three and two to four years out is more inverted than it has been at any point over the past 33 years. This is usually the sign of […]
Is the Barclays ETN fiasco a “create-to-lend” story?
Short answer I don’t know. But it’s worth considering. As it stands Barclays’ ETN losses are being talked about all over the shop. Bloomberg‘s Matt Levine suspects they’re down to a clerical error by a mid-level securities lawyer who forgot to tick a box in a regulatory filing. Others like new Alphaville editor Robin Wigglesworth […]
On the spot: Can a US Treasury-issued digital dollar deliver?
Democratic Congressman Stephen Lynch on Monday released a legislative proposal for the US Treasury to compete with the US Fed on digital dollar issuance for broad public use. The architects of the proposal say this is the best way to protect the privacy of potential digital dollar users and to prevent a CBDC-panopticon from coming […]
Will the US Treasury rescue the world from a CBDC panopticon?
Congressman Stephen F. Lynch is proposing a digital dollar bill on Monday which addresses the privacy and power concentration issues currently posed by conventional central bank digital curency proposals.
WW3 Watch: Now that’s what I call economic warfare
Seemingly unprecedented times call for unprecedented library searches… not least because those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.
In the Blind Spot on Friday (Russian stocks, bitcoin, Covid)
Finance, markets and economics: Reuters reports that Russian stocks fell in their second day of trading after a near month-long suspension. [But as far as I can see that’s definitely a rebound in the Moex? That also looks like a rebound in the rouble: Russia considers accepting bitcoin from friendly countries for oil and gas […]