Tema: PPCC-Pisitófilos Creditófagos-Otoño 2022

[Derby]

https://economics.cmail19.com/t/ViewEmail/d/6281E73823C3B8A92540EF23F30FEDED/D0D19861F170FEAC2C69F821C9DCC086

Three Questions for WSJ Chief Economics Correspondent Nick Timiraos

Q: Federal Reserve officials this week raised their benchmark interest rate three-quarters of a percentage point to a range of 3.75%-4.0%—as expected. The big questions now: How much higher will they go, and how fast will they get there?

Nick: Chairman Jerome Powell suggested officials could consider raising rates at a slightly slower pace beginning in December, by potentially approving an increase of 0.5 percentage point after four consecutive increases of 0.75 percentage point. Mr. Powell implied the decision didn’t necessarily hinge on immediate improvement in inflation data when he said that a series of softer inflation readings was “never … the appropriate test for slowing the pace of increases.”

But even if they go somewhat slower, he said officials would strongly consider raising rates to a higher end point, or “terminal” rate, than officials had projected at their September meeting. Back then, most officials thought the Fed would need to raise interest rates to around 4.75% next year.

Mr. Powell’s willingness to disclose this last piece of information is especially noteworthy because he hasn’t usually done so. After the Fed’s July meeting, for example, I asked him whether his estimate of the terminal rate had moved up, and he punted. “I don’t talk about my own personal estimate of what the terminal rate would be,” he said.

Compare that with Wednesday’s press conference. Mr. Powell volunteered his personal view—without any prompting—that inflation and other data since September “suggest that the ultimate level of interest rates will be higher than previously expected.”



Q: Fed officials are raising rates to increase borrowing costs, slow the economy and push inflation back toward its 2% target. Do they think they can do that without causing a recession?

Nick: In the spring, Mr. Powell and other Fed officials suggested bringing inflation down without a recession was feasible because they still expected the prices of goods that had soared last year to decline steadily this year. But goods inflation hasn’t decelerated as anticipated at the same time that prices for services have increased significantly. The higher the Fed has to raise rates, Mr. Powell said, the greater the risk of a recession.

Mr. Powell didn’t say the Fed was trying to achieve a so-called soft landing that tries to bring down inflation while avoiding a recession. Instead, he focused only on the need to lower inflation. “No one knows whether there is going to be a recession or not, and if so, how bad that recession will be,” he said. “And, you know, our job is to restore price stability…. And that’s what we’re going to do.”



Q: Mr. Powell said he didn’t think “wages are the principal story for why prices are going up." If that’s true, then why is the Fed so focused on slowing down the job market?

Nick: Even if the labor market didn’t start the proverbial inflation fire, some officials are concerned that rising incomes will provide the fuel that sustains consumer demand and allows companies to keep margins wide and prices high. This could ignite a wage-price spiral where prices and paychecks rise in lockstep.

One worry is that a tight labor market could lead wage growth to keep rising at a 6% or higher rate, which is too high to allow inflation to return to the Fed’s 2% goal. While workers’ pay isn’t keeping up with inflation, people who switch jobs are seeing bigger jumps in earnings.

Mr. Powell said he didn’t think there was a wage-price spiral but he added, “once you see it, you’re in trouble. So we don’t want to see it.”

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/def7ec4f-71b0-4765-8bb3-1c8c9bfb2738

The Fed pivot that wasn’t

US rates are going to rise slower, but for longer

(...) A “genuine Fed pivot”, eh?

Bit of a problem there, as Fed Chair Jay Powell said during Wednesday’s presser there’s “some ways to go”, and that rates may end up at a higher level than officials had previously forecast. The last round of dots had rates rising as high as 4.9 per cent next year.

The futures market has ratcheted up projections further, with the futures-implied rate up to 5.2 per cent by June 2023, the highest so far this cycle:



To be sure, it’s possible the dollar has overrun a bit. Financial markets are forward-looking, after all, so a slowdown in the Fed’s rate-hike pace could still help countries that import food and energy.

But just because the worst is over doesn’t mean global economies won’t still face stress. Perkins writes that “Canada, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, the Nordics and a portion of the euro area” could face especially severe pressure because of “current account deficits, a heavy reliance on external funding, large/overleveraged financial sectors and domestic property bubbles.” He continues:

Beyond the relative safety of US-denominated assets — since further dollar strength seems inevitable in the absence of a Fed pivot — there are few parts of the world that are likely to provide “safe-haven status”. Investors should probably favour the currencies of economies with strong trade positions, modest financial imbalances, and central banks that can defend their exchange rates without driving those economies into a recessionary death spiral.

Outside the US, some safer destinations for cash include Switzerland and Japan.

And even in the US, it will be . . . interesting to see how the economy fares with a 5-per-cent-plus fed funds rate. The view from the central bank appears to be that businesses have termed out their debt and consumers have been holding on to cash, so rates can grind higher with minimal pain.

Still, investment-grade bonds have posted a nearly 20-per-cent loss this year, investors are indeed withdrawing cash from open-ended funds, and analysts are starting to ask questions about how managers are marking their portfolios to market. The QQQs are down more than 30 per cent this year. And if Wednesday’s presser was any indication, things could get uglier.

[senslev]

En línea editorial del foro.

https://wolfstreet.com/2022/11/05/the-housing-bubble-popped-and-the-fed-can-let-it-rip/

And this time, the housing bust won’t take down the banks, as it did last time, because the banks no longer own the mortgages. The whole industry has changed. Most of the mortgages are securitized into mortgage-backed securities, by entities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are under government conservatorship, or by Ginnie Mae and the Veterans Administration, which are government agencies, and the government guarantees the mortgages. And these mortgage-backed securities are sold to investors such as pension funds, insurance companies, bond mutual funds, etc. around the globe.

If mortgage credit blows up, if there’s another huge wave of foreclosures, it won’t hit the banks; it’ll hit taxpayers mostly, and investors to a lesser extent.

But we’re not seeing any signs of credit blowing up yet. Mortgage defaults and foreclosures are just now creeping up from the record lows during the pandemic and remain lower than any time before the pandemic. So we’re far from that happening, and if and when it happens, it’ll hit taxpayers and investors, and not banks.

So the Fed, which is in charge of keeping the banking system from toppling, won’t have to bail out the housing market because it won’t take down the banks.

And if it wants to because inflation is still raging, the Fed can just let the housing bust rip.

[sudden and sharp]

https://www.ft.com/content/def7ec4f-71b0-4765-8bb3-1c8c9bfb2738

The Fed pivot that wasn’t

US rates are going to rise slower, but for longer

(...) A “genuine Fed pivot”, eh?

Bit of a problem there, as Fed Chair Jay Powell said during Wednesday’s presser there’s “some ways to go”, and that rates may end up at a higher level than officials had previously forecast. The last round of dots had rates rising as high as 4.9 per cent next year.

The futures market has ratcheted up projections further, with the futures-implied rate up to 5.2 per cent by June 2023, the highest so far this cycle:



To be sure, it’s possible the dollar has overrun a bit. Financial markets are forward-looking, after all, so a slowdown in the Fed’s rate-hike pace could still help countries that import food and energy.

But just because the worst is over doesn’t mean global economies won’t still face stress. Perkins writes that “Canada, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, the Nordics and a portion of the euro area” could face especially severe pressure because of “current account deficits, a heavy reliance on external funding, large/overleveraged financial sectors and domestic property bubbles.” He continues:

Beyond the relative safety of US-denominated assets — since further dollar strength seems inevitable in the absence of a Fed pivot — there are few parts of the world that are likely to provide “safe-haven status”. Investors should probably favour the currencies of economies with strong trade positions, modest financial imbalances, and central banks that can defend their exchange rates without driving those economies into a recessionary death spiral.

Outside the US, some safer destinations for cash include Switzerland and Japan.

And even in the US, it will be . . . interesting to see how the economy fares with a 5-per-cent-plus fed funds rate. The view from the central bank appears to be that businesses have termed out their debt and consumers have been holding on to cash, so rates can grind higher with minimal pain.

Still, investment-grade bonds have posted a nearly 20-per-cent loss this year, investors are indeed withdrawing cash from open-ended funds, and analysts are starting to ask questions about how managers are marking their portfolios to market. The QQQs are down more than 30 per cent this year. And if Wednesday’s presser was any indication, things could get uglier.

Chi va piano va lontano.   

[sudden and sharp]

Lo encontré:

Se mostró partidaria, asimismo de regular un salario mínimo a la carta, que pueda ser distinto para el sector industrial y el agrario, por ejemplo, o diferente para un joven que se incorpore al mercado de trabajo. “No nos debe dar miedo regular las cosas desde la complejidad”, detalló.

Guinda promete escuchar a los empresarios de base e influir en la política para dirigir CEOE
https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2022/11/04/economia/1667560070_744565.html






Eso no es el salario mínimo a la carta, eso son los salarios de convenio, digo yo. (Y _todos_ igual o por encima del SMI.)
Lo que está proponiendo es eliminar la interprofesionalidad del salario mínimo.

[wanderer]

Lo encontré:

Se mostró partidaria, asimismo de regular un salario mínimo a la carta, que pueda ser distinto para el sector industrial y el agrario, por ejemplo, o diferente para un joven que se incorpore al mercado de trabajo. “No nos debe dar miedo regular las cosas desde la complejidad”, detalló.

Guinda promete escuchar a los empresarios de base e influir en la política para dirigir CEOE
https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2022/11/04/economia/1667560070_744565.html






Eso no es el salario mínimo a la carta, eso son los salarios de convenio, digo yo. (Y _todos_ igual o por encima del SMI.)
Lo que está proponiendo es eliminar la interprofesionalidad del salario mínimo.

Un salario mínimo a la carta es una contradicción en los términos. Cero en Matemáticas.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Lo encontré:

Se mostró partidaria, asimismo de regular un salario mínimo a la carta, que pueda ser distinto para el sector industrial y el agrario, por ejemplo, o diferente para un joven que se incorpore al mercado de trabajo. “No nos debe dar miedo regular las cosas desde la complejidad”, detalló.

Guinda promete escuchar a los empresarios de base e influir en la política para dirigir CEOE
https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2022/11/04/economia/1667560070_744565.html






Eso no es el salario mínimo a la carta, eso son los salarios de convenio, digo yo. (Y _todos_ igual o por encima del SMI.)
Lo que está proponiendo es eliminar la interprofesionalidad del salario mínimo.

https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2022/11/04/economia/1667560070_744565.html

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2022/11/04/636500bd468aebf1718b45c4.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

US May Soon Push Ambitious Antitrust Crackdown on Big Tech in Congress
Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday November 05, 2022 @03:34PM from the too-big-to-flail dept.

America's federal government "is planning a post-midterms push for antitrust legislation that would rein in the power of the world's largest tech companies," reports Bloomberg, "a last-ditch effort to get a stalled pair of bills through Congress before a predicted Republican takeover in January."

The lame-duck period after Tuesday's U.S. election may be the last shot to pass the landmark legislation, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and Open App Markets Act. The bills, which would prevent the tech companies from using their platforms to thwart competitors, would be the most significant expansion of antitrust law in over a century.... Republicans have made it clear that they won't support the bills if they retake control of either chamber of Congress. That has supporters urging the White House to mount a push in the final weeks before a new Congress is seated early next year.

Advocates have criticized the White House for failing to prioritize the legislation, which major tech companies have spent more than $100 million to defeat. Alphabet's Google, Amazon, Apple and Meta all oppose the bill. "There is bipartisan support for antitrust bills, and no reason why Congress can't act before the end of the year," said White House spokesperson Emilie Simons. "We are planning on stepping up engagement during the lame duck on the president's agenda across the board, antitrust included." Versions of both bills have made it through committees but await action by the full House and Senate.

If Congress doesn't act before the end of the year, it will likely be years before U.S. lawmakers pass any legislation to crack down on the power of the tech giants.

Saludos.

[Yupi_Punto]

Asset Deflation

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/ahorro/2022/11/05/63658e98468aeb896e8b45e3.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2022/11/05/636560a7468aebce428b4614.html

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2022/11/05/63656952468aeb55438b45a4.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/empresas/banca/2022/11/05/63658d17468aebfb7e8b469e.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/economia/politica/2022/11/04/63655b16468aeb75038b4666.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2022/11/05/6365679a468aebf1718b45e5.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2022/11/05/6365700f468aebea038b45b3.html

Saludos.