One of the great joys of my job is to meet old and new friends who teach and/or remind me of marvelous concepts and ideas. One such incident happened about […]

Fact 1: In the early 1990s, if it were not for Europeans and the US, Germany would have had a pretty rough and bumpy ride towards its reunification. The direct […]

First of all, a special note of thanks to a good friend (IKM) who recently reminded me of the concept of Seisachtheia. Thus, a historical reference is needed first (please […]

They did it again. They rolled the dice again in favor of $600 billion in purchases, and when we count the repurchases of other paper-instruments (e.g. mortgages and MBS), the […]

Just a few days ago the auction for TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protection Securities) produced for the first time ever negative yields. When we take into account that TIPS’ correlation with […]

The securitization problems seem to be making another comeback in the form of “foreclosuregate”, as the Economist newspaper has labeled its latest phase. Banks seem to be admitting to subpar […]

Today China decided to raise its lending and deposit rates. How could we interpret such a move? In the near future we will draft a commentary on Icarus, but let […]

Have you seen him lately? He is still rolling that stone up to the hill. He is my good friend, Sisyphus. He was condemned to roll the stone up the […]