If iPhone can read Kindle book, iPad can!
Posted in Uncategorized.
From the blog News to Use, quoting David Rosenberg. I think the real world deflation would go on, while asset price inflation may go even further.
(
New to Use / Rosenberg) … As per the revised Q4 data, we now see that unit labour costs slid at a 5.9 % annual rate, the third decline in the past four quarters. On a year-over-year basis, unit labour costs plunged 4.7%, which is unprecedented (the pre-revised YoY trend was -2.8%). As the chart illustrates, there is a tight 82% correlation between unit labour costs and the trend in headline inflation…
By way of comparison, commodity prices only have a 33% correlation to the inflation rate — in no small part because 60% of the CPI is in services and there is a whole host of cyclical services ranging from hotels, to recreation, to rents that are deflating, and deflating fast.
Posted in Macro.
From Infectious Greed quoting CS research – 5% chance for a global sovereign default (here for full article). It also quoted need-to-know history on how government controlling bond market:
(Infectious Greed / CS )… In 1942, the US Treasury capped the US ten-year bond yield at 2.5% (and the 3m T-bill rate at 0.38%). Over the following ten years, inflation averaged almost 6% and, as a consequence, the stock of government debt to GDP fell from 120% to 66% (despite real GDP growth over that 10-year period being just 2% pa).
Any attempt to cap bond yields today would likely lead to a sell-off by foreign investors (back in the 1940s, the US were running a trade surplus, i.e. was exporting capital). It is clearly harder to allow a sharp depreciation of a currency for countries with independent central banks (which have a mandate to keep inflation low) and which, like the US, run a current account deficit and thus need to attract $350bn a year of foreign capital.
Posted in Macro.
Hat tip Credit Writedowns: “Happiness ain’t all it’s cracked up to be“.
(NewScientist) … Psychologist Joe Forgas at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, … suggests that happiness’s negative effects all stem from a cheery mood’s tendency to lull you into feeling secure. This makes you look inwards and behave both more selfishly and more carelessly.
“People in a positive mood generally rely more on their own thoughts and preferences, and pay less attention to the outside world and social norms,” says Forgas…
… Forgas’s explanation is that happy people focus more on their own desires. “Positive mood is in a sense an evolutionary signal, subconsciously informing people that the situation they face is safe and non-threatening,” he says. This encourages people to rely more on their own thoughts and preferences, with selfishness the result.
… Forgas has found that happy people are less able to develop a persuasive argument, more gullible and worse at remembering objects in a shop window than their unhappy fellows. Happy people are also more likely to be influenced by stereotypes, says Forgas …
… “High levels of happiness generate openness to new experiences and gregariousness, but they also generate a lack of attention to detailed information and recklessness,” says Cummins, [a psychologist at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, and editor of the Journal of Happiness Studies]. … “Low levels of happiness generate introspection and the careful processing of information, where choices must be carefully made.”
Posted in Life.
