Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A Decade of Easy Money, Tough Love, and Hard Oil

November 30, 2010
Hong Kong’s Retail Sales Rise 21.6% on ‘Easy Money’

A “firm” job market and “seemingly indefinite easy money conditions mean that local households and businesses are spending, firing up the economy’s internal engine of growth,” Donna Kwok, a Hong Kong-based economist at HSBC Holdings Plc, said before today’s data.

What's that word "seemingly" doing there? Surely easy money conditions will last forever. From here on out everyone wins and nobody pays. Woohoo!

The jobless rate stayed at 4.2 percent...

I can recall a time when we had 4.4 percent unemployment. It was May of 2007. Good times. So what went wrong?


Click to enlarge.

Oh yeah. Now I remember.

1. Hard oil inspired tough love.
2. Tough love inspired more easy money.
3. Easy money inspired more hard oil.

It's like a rock-paper-scissors game that never ends.

Surely Hong Kong learned from our mistakes though.


November 18, 2010
Hong Kong's Expansionary Monetary Policy Raises Asset Bubble Prospects: IMF

"Depending on the amplitude of the upswing, the resulting downturn could prove both protracted and painful," the IMF warned.

Not to be alarmist or anything, but a rise in retail sales of 21.6% seems like a fairly large upswing.

2 comments:

watchtower said...

"1. Hard oil inspired tough love.
2. Tough love inspired more easy money.
3. Easy money inspired more hard oil.

It's like a rock-paper-scissors game that never ends."



Or a perpetual motion machine!

But I don't know if it's perfected like our financial system is.

Stagflationary Mark said...

watchtower,

But I don't know if it's perfected like our financial system is.

Although I would be among the first to point out just how perfect our financial system has become, there's always room for improvement.

I'm picturing...

Rube Goldberg Sachs

Forget way too big to fail. Try way too complex to fail! Woohoo!