Authored by Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke.
With the arrival of President Hugo Chávez in 1999, Venezuela embraced Chavismo, a form of Andean socialism. In 2013, Chávez met the Grim Reaper, and Nicolás Maduro assumed Chávez’ mantle.
The Grim Reaper has also taken scythe to the Venezuelan bolivar. The death of the bolivar is depicted in the following chart. A bolivar is worthless.
Softening apartment rents, particularly in the massively over-priced, millennial safe-spaces of New York City and San Francisco, have been a frequent topic of conversation for us over the past several quarters...here are just a couple of recent examples:
'Hope' may create asset bubbles but it doesn't buy cars, put shoes on kids feet, or food on the family table...
5 months of hope... any day now the 'real' economy will catch up to the fantasy? Today alone we had disappointment in Retail Sales, Real Earnigs, and CPI!!
But it seems while 'hope' doesn't pay the bills (stagnating incomes), it certainly fuels the stock market...
Tick Tock Mr. Trump.
Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
Albert Edwards at Societe General commented yesterday on Central Bank Hubris, deflation, and the flattening of the US yield curve. Here are some email snips.
How’s this for Grade 1 central bank hubris?
Peter Praet, the ECB’s chief economist said in a recent interview that, “Since the crisis, we have had serious concerns about deflationary risks on several occasions in the euro area, but now we can say they have disappeared.”
Just over two months ago, the Atlanta Fed "calculated" that Q1 GDP was going to be a pleasant 3.4%, confirming that the Fed had made the correct decision by hiking not only in December, but also last month. Since then, the Fed's own GDP estimate has crashed in almost linear fashion, and as of this morning - after the latest disappointing retail sales report - it had plunged to just 0.5%, which if accurate would make Q1 the weakest quarter going back three years to Q1 2014.
From the regional Fed: