Corporate Cash in Balance Sheets: What Does the Story Imply?
Corporate buybacks are used to return cash to stockholders. Moreover without committing to higher dividends they boost earnings per share, and anchor the spread of equity dispersion. In times when companies do not expect significant growth and the prospects of...
The EU and the Amazing Act of Shooting Slower than its Shadow: Twenty One Eurogroup Meetings Later, Where is the Substance?
There are two opposing forces that are taking place in the EU. One pushes for greater political and economic integration, the other for greater disintegration. At the same time secession forces are aspired from Spain (Catalonia), Italy (Venice), U.K. (Scotland), and...
The Markets and Zeno’s Dilemma: Transcending the Complexity of Transfinite Policies
The markets’ developments in the last few months may resemble Zeno’s paradox. According to it, the flight of an arrow signifies the impossibility of change or motion. At any given moment of an arrow’s flight the latter is where it is or where it is not. If it happens...
The Ecosystem of Money: The Placebo Remedy to the Growth Dilemma
Let me be pretty blunt in this commentary. Growth is stalling almost everywhere due to the gargantuan amount of debt (public and private). Central banks have been exploiting their balance sheets, applying placebo treatments to their sick economies. These treatments...
A Note on China and India: The Pacific and the 21st Century Dilemma of “Buddenbrooks”
Thomas Mann was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. His novel titled Buddenbrooks has been credited for such success. The novel chronicles the decline of a German bourgeois family. In a similar fashion recent signs of significant slowdown in China...
The Dislocation of Risk and the Mispricing of Assets: The Koilogastor Market
What is a koilogastor market? One interpretation could be a market characterized by gluttony and voracity. Another could be a market whose womb is empty while declaring that a baby is forthcoming. For the purpose of this commentary a koilogastor market is a market...
The Economy and the Necropolis of Troy: On Mobs, the Arab Spring, and QEs
The events that shaped last week – and potentially the weeks and months, if not years to come - had both geoeconomics and geopolitical dimensions. In situations like these, the beneficiaries could be viewed as those who shape the path towards the ultimate outcome....
The ECB Chants In Paradisum: Seeking Safe Collateral in the Midst of Delusion
Last Thursday, Mario Draghi the President of the ECB indicated willingness to start again his “asset purchases program”, baptized this time with the title of OMT (outright monetary transactions) a.k.a. issuing electronic money/credits to purchase the paper of troubled...
The Great Bailout of Germany
It has been almost three years now since the rumors started that something was rotten with the Greek public finances. Excesses have been documented. Wasteful expenditures, inefficiencies, and corrupt practices have also been documented and dominated the news. There is...
On Risk Premiums, Earnings Growth Potential, and Monetization Routes: Diminishing Returns and the Liquidity Tree
Over the last few weeks, we have argued that we are entering a watershed moment in economic and financial history, when significant decisions have to be made, since kicking the can down the road has its limits. The risks associated with those decisions are not...
