A New Economy for a New Expansion
By Jeanette Garretty, Chief Economist Deliberately Provocative Thoughts on the Inevitable Future April 15, 2020 – Humans are an amazing species. Perhaps it goes back to the ancient motivation to hunt for the next mastodon – while ever-attempting to find a better way to put food on the table—that even in the depths of coping […]
Surveying the Battleground
By Jeanette Garretty, Chief Economist March 3, 2020 – The Federal Reserve decision to cut the Fed Funds Rate by 50 bps brings a number of economic and financial market forces into sharper focus. Reason dictates that the Fed is proactively ensuring adequate liquidity to economic and financial markets that are going to be challenged […]
Deficit Attention Disorder Redux
February 13, 2020 – The US Treasury Department has released federal budget deficit, receipts and outlays numbers for the first four months of the government’s fiscal year (October 2019 through January 2020) and they certainly deserve attention. However, the 25% increase in the federal budget deficit over that time period is really a headline-grabbing distraction resulting […]
Time
By Jeanette Garretty August 21, 2019 – Many of us can often be found expressing a fervent wish for more time—more time to sleep, more time with the family, more time to read, more time to complete an ever-present mountain of to-do’s. Most of us have been raised with a number of well-worn aphorisms about […]
Financial Market Challenges and Opportunities: An Interview With Robertson Stephens Managing Director Michael Zaninovich
August 15, 2019 Jeanette Garretty sat down to discuss financial market conditions with her colleague, Michael Zaninovich, after the close of US markets on Tuesday. The following is a transcript of their discussion. JG: Michael, the markets are having another bout of volatility here in August. What do you see as the primary causes? MZ: […]
Currency Manipulation: Can it be done?
By Jeanette Garretty August 7 2019 – A brief history of global currency markets must always address the various attempts by central governments to influence the exchange rate of their native currencies. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Switzerland have all had notable instances when they were publicly accused of aggressively trying to maintain or otherwise […]
And Here We Go…
By Jeanette Garretty August 8 2019 – It’s not good when the online site for the Wall Street Journal features inch high headlines that resemble a supermarket tabloid. Yuan Plunges!! Global Stocks Fall! Giant Asteroid Heads Toward Earth!! Okay, that last one wasn’t on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, but only because […]
Life Is Simple . . . Until It’s Not
By Jeanette Garretty June 7 2019 – Veteran observers of the Federal Reserve (aka “Fed Watchers”) know that the lodestar of monetary policy is the Fed’s unflinching commitment to its long-established, Congressionally-directed mandate: “ . . .to support three specific goals: maximum sustainable employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.” www.federalreserve.gov There are many […]
Dancing with Elephants: US-China Trade Negotiations At An Impasse
By Jeanette Garretty May 16 2019 – In 1942, George Balanchine asked his friend Igor Stravinsky to compose a ballet for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus elephants. The “Circus Polka: For a Young Elephant” was performed in the Spring of 1942 – to great acclaim — by fifty elephants in pink tutus […]
Deficit Attention Disorder
October 1 2018 – The federal budget deficit numbers released by the Treasury Department on October 15 were not exactly a surprise. Economists and analysts such as the Congressional Budget Office and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget have predicted for months that the 2018 fiscal year deficit would widen, potentially sharply, as a […]