Oil
Oil Spikes and Inflation
June 10, 2008
The lead editorial in Monday’s Wall Street Journal complained that “the policy mix of easy money and rebates isn’t working,” made another plea for the Fed “to protect the dollar with deeds, not words,” and warned about “a rerun of That 70s Show of higher prices but mediocre growth.” Calling 1970’s growth mediocre is misleading […] More
Oil
U.S. Trade Deficit With OPEC Widened Further
June 10, 2008
The deficit to OPEC increased 10.5% between March and April and by 67.8% in January-April from a year earlier. The $58.5 billion trade shortfall with OPEC in the first third of 2008 was roughly the same size as the combined deficits with Europe and Japan. 55% of incremental growth in the deficit to OPEC between […] More
Central Bank Watch
Bank of Canada Fails to Cut Rates
June 10, 2008
The more anti-inflationary tone of all central banks in recent days took another giant step forward when a universally expected 25-basis point rate cut in Canada was not announced. Instead, Bank of Canada officials revised their forecast for total CPI inflation to above 3% later this year. CPI forecasts for 2H08 had previously been pencilled […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
New Developments Abroad
June 10, 2008
Strong overnight gains in the dollar amount to 1.5% against the Swiss franc, 0.9% versus sterling and the euro, 0.7% relative to the C-dollar, and 0.5% against the kiwi and yen. Latest impetus for appreciation came from a speech by Bernanke in which he promised that the Fed will strongly resist any surge in long […] More
