Viewpoints: 2020

Officiandos of the works of Charles Dickens will recognize the book titles that head up this commentary. 'Hard Times' certainly seems apt when assessing the global economic damage that's been generated by the current crisis and the [...]

Federal Reserve has spent over a year conducting a review of its monetary policy strategy, tools, and communication process. The review was an academic re-assessment of an academic experiment called inflation targeting. The new [...]

The sharp drop in operating profits in 2020 mirrors the decline of 2008. But the mix of profits is markedly different, with the bulk of the decline centered in non-financial industries. The crisis of 2020 is centered more so in the [...]

The Federal Reserve's new policy of inflation "averaging" is a mistake. The trade-off nowadays is between inflation and financial stability. Buying more inflation will eventually create financial imbalances that over time will [...]

Having been at the forefront of globalisation in the last few decades emerging economies in Asia are now under severe strain. That globalisation trend after all was already stalling before the Coronavirus made its mark on China. And [...]

At this week's Fed's annual Jackson Hole conference Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is expected to announce a new policy approach that is intended to give policymakers more flexibility and time to achieve their inflation [...]

State labor markets generally showed further substantive improvement in July. Most saw statistically significant drops in their unemployment rate, led by Michigan's spectacular 6.2 percentage-point plunge. Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah [...]

With each passing day, the failure of Congress and the Administration to reach a deal on extending fiscal stimulus creates a bigger and bigger hole in consumer cash flow. So far investors have brushed off the stalemate. But that’s a [...]