We are at historically unprecedented times. Consider these facts: There are over $9T worth of government securities that are yielding negative nominal interest rates. That’s right, people are giving governments trillions of dollars with a guaranteed negative return. Hmmm. Many unicorns are losing money but still getting premium IPO prices. Lyft lost nearly $1B last […]
Archives
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The most important price in our economy is socialist, not capitalist. Bernie, you’ve already won!
20 Mar 2019
Yesterday I was teaching on money in macroeconomics, and we discussed how the Fed influences the whole complex of interest rates. That naturally led to the question, how does the Fed “know” what the right level of reserves are, what the correct Fed funds rate should be, etc. What we know for sure is that […]
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Weekly Sage #19: Irving Fisher
15 Mar 2019
The Weekly Sage hopes to regularly bring brief profiles of key contributors to thought and faith before a Christian audience for historical education and awareness of valuable resources. Irving Fisher “We have seen that all wealth and property imply prospective services or ‘desirable events.’ It is the desirability of these future expected services which gives […]
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The Weekly Sage hopes to regularly bring brief profiles of key contributors to thought and faith before a Christian audience for historical education and awareness of valuable resources. Sometimes history brings together a special combination of resources and people that form a center of intellectual influence. The Weekly Sage will occasionally consider such “Schools” together. […]
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Market Volatility Returns–the end of the Boom?
21 Nov 2018
The index of stock market volatility (one measure of market fear) has risen in the past week, concurrent with large absolute point swings (although relatively low on a percentage basis). Markets are not as volatile as they were in October, but clearly there are uncertain times ahead, and markets generally like certainty. There are so […]
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Servant of the Lender
13 Nov 2018
Proverb 22:7 tells us: “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.” Most contemporary translations render ébed “slave” as with the ESV here. The predominant translation of ébed in the King James version is “servant”. In Hebrew culture an ébed was commonly a slave, however, given the connotation […]
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Even a stopped clock is right twice per day, and Mr. Trump is right much more than that (from an economic perspective). So despite my angst over his posture on immigration and free trade, let’s give Mr. Trump his due. The Fed’s easy money policy is fraught with significant problems, and the Fed itself is institutionally […]
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Stock markets hit record highs this week, and yet most people aren’t excited about it. Google “the most hated bull market in history” and you’ll find many reasons for pessimism–we just don’t trust this market. In normal times, this would indicate we are still healthy, as legendary investor Sir John Templeton once said: “Bull markets […]
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This blog is not investment advice. Mainly because yours truly has no clue what to tell you to do, although some foolishly ask him, demanding SPECIFICS. As if without a specific prediction you have nothing worthwhile to say. It is absolutely true that I might have nothing worthwhile to say–but not because I fail to […]
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It always amazes me that most people think that the effect of central bankers on the global economy is small. Its not just our resident critic here @ BATG. I went to a conference last year where a very conservative Christian financial advisor told me that the stock market was basically just about the great […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach