The Morass of Debt
Interview with Dr. Lacy Hunt on the pervasive effects of accumulated debt on the economy and financial market pricing.
View ArticleThe Anatomy of a Financial Meltdown
The Euro debt situation continues to deteriorate and the U.S. is not far behind. All the distress that is now focused on government debt comes from excessive private indebtedness as developed world...
View ArticleRoadblocks to Recovery an Interview with Dr. Lacy Hunt
The extent and implication of the U. S. debt overload. Neither monetary nor fiscal policy can solve the debt problem nor the profound side effects of excess debt. Download .pdf Welling at Weeden Interview
View ArticleThe Now Generation Government Has Failed the Marshmallow Test: Making Sense...
Over the past five years, the government has applied the usual demand-side remedies in the epic battle against The Great Recession. The graph shows the time profile of past recessions and recoveries as...
View ArticleIs the Cyprus Bank Fiasco the Template for the Future?
We are living in profound times. The Great Recession, followed by epic levels of deficit spending sustained by monetary policy, is now having short-term remedial effects on the U.S. economy. But before...
View ArticleOn Saving the Economy: Plan B
The antidote to a troubled macro environment since Keynes wrote the book in the 1930s Depression has been the dual demand-side sledgehammers of government deficit spending and monetary expansion. This...
View ArticleCountry Debt Enablers and the Greek Conundrum
For a country with little penchant to tax and a greater penchant to spend, financing its fiscal deficit is an ongoing chore. When it comes to financing its deficits, governments have tricks up their...
View ArticleThe Next Leg of Globalism
In 1993, there was a great debate carried live on national TV between then-Vice President Al Gore and Dallas entrepreneur Ross Perot. The issue was the pros and cons of going global. Equally unusual in...
View ArticleThe US Growth Machine is Red Taped to Death
We can chastise the Federal Reserve for being unable to get itself to move off of a zero interest rate (because doing so has harmful side effects), but the Fed has no other way to influence the...
View ArticleNegative Interest Rate Neverland
In the wonky world of central banking, the Rx for reviving an economy comes down to reducing the cost of credit so that borrowers are tempted to borrow and spend. These notions, taught in central...
View ArticleBond Refugees Flee to Stock Lands
Tension is building among stock investors. Stock prices have levitated while the most fundamental determinant of stock price support— an uplift in corporate earnings — has gone soft. But on the other...
View ArticleThe Mad Genius of the Zero-Forever Bond
That the developed world’s governments are accumulating outsized debt shouldn’t be news to anyone. Unless there are some tricks up the government’s sleeves — and they are tricksters — there will be...
View ArticleThe House of Cards: EU Edition
Negative interest rates pursued by central banks of distressed economies are more of a problem than a solution. They bleed investment income from financial institutions already facing asset write-offs....
View ArticleIt’s a Whole New Ballgame: The Fed Has Been Stymied: (Part 1)
To prevent a reoccurrence of the 2008 financial meltdown, the banks of the G-20 countries must now operate under new rules that encourages substantially higher holding of cash. This changes both the...
View ArticleIn The New Monetary Ballgame, the Game Is Rigged for US Treasuries (Part 2)
Financial crises, à la 2008, are an invitation for regulation that carries far-reaching and unintended consequences. Banks across the developed world are being forced to hold more cash and cash-like...
View ArticleThe Pernicious Effects of Debt Accumulation: An Interview with Lacy Hunt
This monthly SpellmanReport is an interview with Lacy Hunt, Ph.D., a prominent economist and investment manager noted for his views on inflation and deflation, interest rates, and monetary policy....
View ArticleHouston, We’ve Had a Problem
The Federal Reserve responded to the spectacular financial meltdown of 2008 by putting a bottom under the cascading financial prices. This was accomplished by buying, buying, and buying some more. Then...
View ArticleAt the Cross Roads of Money and Inflation
We all have in our heads the instinctive notion that more money circulating in an economy is inflationary. Indeed the notion of the proportionality of money and prices exists in academia as well. It is...
View ArticleThe Trump Tariff Offensive
Tariffs revision designed to cure trade deficits have become a live and contentious economic policy issue. Despite the ripples it creates, confronting the trade deficit is long overdue given its...
View Article