26 March 2017 - 26 June 2017 Let the directors of the [Second Bank of the United States] pursue their business on principles of Christian benevolence, and all will be well. Let them wind up the business of the Bank, without attempting to break down the government, … and it will die with the blessings of thousands; otherwise, it will have the curses of millions. I have read the … [Read more...] about Leithner Letter Nos. 209-212
Leithner Letter Nos. 205-208
26 November 2016 - 26 February 2017 The FOMC has consistently overestimated future Fed Funds Rate (FFR) hikes. For a body that prides itself on super-scientific research methods and has teams of economists (self-described) and statisticians, it’s interesting that they can’t even predict their own behaviour. The graph is comical. These errors can be either … [Read more...] about Leithner Letter Nos. 205-208
Leithner Letter Nos. 200-204
26 July - 26 October 2016 Nobel Prize winning economist and former vice-president of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, praised Venezuela’s economic growth and “positive policies in health and education” during a visit to Caracas on Wednesday. “Venezuela’s economic growth has been very impressive in the last few years,” Stiglitz said … “President Hugo Chávez appears to have had … [Read more...] about Leithner Letter Nos. 200-204
Leithner Letter Nos. 196-199
26 March 2016 - 26 June 2016 … There cannot be any question of abolishing interest by any institutions, laws, or devices of bank manipulation. He who wants to “abolish” interest will have to induce people to value an apple available in a hundred years no less than a present apple. What can be abolished by laws and decrees is merely the right of the capitalists to receive … [Read more...] about Leithner Letter Nos. 196-199
Leithner Letter Nos. 192-195
26 November 2015 - 26 February 2016 We're delaying a normalization of rates way, way beyond what is prudent. We have a monetary policy that's now in place that was adopted for the crisis conditions of 2008 and 2009. This [northern] summer we're going to be getting the seventh year of this recovery. It's been a lousy recovery, but it's still the seventh year of a recovery. That … [Read more...] about Leithner Letter Nos. 192-195
Leithner Letter Nos. 188-191
26 July 2015 - 26 October 2015 The special commodity or medium that we call money has a long and interesting history. And since we are so dependent on our use of it (and so much controlled and motivated by the wish to have more of it or not to lose what we have) we may become irrational in thinking about it and fail to be able to reason about it like about a technology, such … [Read more...] about Leithner Letter Nos. 188-191
Leithner Letter Nos. 184-187
26 March 2015 - 26 June 2015 analysis, Benjamin Graham, wrote in The Intelligent Investor in 1949: “The investor’s chief problem – and even his worst enemy – is likely to be himself.” … From financial history and from my own experience, I long ago concluded that regression to the mean is the most powerful law in financial physics: Periods of above-average performance are … [Read more...] about Leithner Letter Nos. 184-187
Leithner Letter Nos. 179-183
26 October 2014 - 26 February 2015 altogether even the pretence of teaching. … [More generally, English universities have] become sanctuaries in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices found shelter and protection, after they had been hunted out of every other corner of the world. In general, the richest and best endowed universities have been the slowest in adopting … [Read more...] about Leithner Letter Nos. 179-183
Leithner Letter Nos. 175-178
26 June 2014 - 26 September 2014 There’s a pattern of falsifying statistics throughout the entire [U.S.] Census Bureau. And anyone who attempts to blow the whistle on the fraud is either retaliated against or ignored, according to two new sources who have experienced the process firsthand. In [one] instance, a data collector … was faking reports that went into the nation’s … [Read more...] about Leithner Letter Nos. 175-178
Leithner Letter Nos. 171-174
26 February 2014 - 26 May 2014 I favour the policy of economy not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the government. Every dollar we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meagre. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be … [Read more...] about Leithner Letter Nos. 171-174