I’m back! Didja miss me?
So here’s the thing: I’ve been out of the loop for the past three weeks or
so, and it’s going to take me a little bit of time to get up to speed. If you
would, then, can you tell me in the comments here or by email what if anything
has actually happened in the past three weeks which I really ought to know about
for the purposes of this blog? I know the Fed cut its discount rate, so anything
from then onwards really.
My general impression is that no news is bad news: that the credit crunch hasn’t
really ameliorated visibly, and that there are signs that problems which had
hitherto been confined to the financial and housing markets are now feeding
through into the real economy – a problem which rate cuts may or may not
be able to address. Or, to put it another way, nothing’s really happened.
Many, many thanks to Yves Smith for filling in so magnificently in my absence.
The wonkery level will now go down by about seventeen notches; instead, I promise
a new entry under the "facial hair" category
on Monday. You have been warned.
(And yes, I have a copy of that
CPDO report. Thanks. Also, if you want an idea of what I’ve been up to all
this time, you can check out my
posts on Portfolio’s art blog.)