Cash Alternatives: How Short-Term Munis Provide Safety, Liquidity, and Tax Benefits
Savers have been rejoicing over the last year or so. With the Fed raising benchmark rates, CDs, money market funds, ...
Why The “Friedman Thermostat” Analogy Should Be Uncomfortable For The Mainstream
Nick Rowe’s article on Milton Friedman’s Thermostat has popped up in online conversation. For those of you unfamiliar with it, ...
Waller Comments
Nick Timiroas highlighted an exchange from Fed Governor Waller (link to speech/interview transcript) on Twitter. This article consists of two ...
Municipal Debt Outlook for 2024
Against the backdrop of conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe and a global economic slowdown, investors are actively ...
A Response To A Question About Post-Keynesian Interest Rate Theories (…And A Rant)
I got a question about references for post-Keynesian theories of interest rates. My answer to this has a lot of ...
Navigating Economic Uncertainty: The Case for Municipal Bonds
While the economy seems to be moving right along, there’s no doubt that it is slowing. The combined effect of ...
A Non-Forecast 2024 Outlook
Since I am not in the forecasting game, I not on top of what the consensus views are. I also ...
Central Banks And Crises
This article is a wrapping up of a sequence of articles on the topic of “central banks as banks,” which ...
Investor Jitters or Legitimate Concerns? Decoding the State Revenue Decline and Its Impact on Municipal Bonds
Municipal bonds are typically seen as a boring fixed income sector. Volatility and defaults are both low. So, when any ...
Should Everybody Have An Account At The Central Bank?
This will be my last posting before Christmas, and depending on what I get up to, possibly the last of ...
Should Central Banks Lend Unsecured To The Private Sector?
This article continues my sequence of articles on central banks as banks, which is projected to be a chapter in ...
Using Fed Projections To Infer The Term Premium?
I was passed along the article “Views from the Floor — Tighter and Tighter” by the Man Institute published last ...
Unlocking the Potential: 5 Reasons Munis Deserve a Spot in Your Portfolio
Thanks to last year’s bond rout and the Fed’s continued path of monetary tightening, there are plenty of compelling opportunities ...
The Central Bank And Government Finance
This article continues the sequence of articles on central banks as banks. This article was as brief as possible since ...
Unveiling the Crucial Role of Financial Forecasting in Shaping Annual Rates for U.S. Public Utilities
U.S. public utilities, like water, wastewater and solid waste, are generally operated by government entities or local municipalities. These governing ...
Central Bank Balance Sheets
This article continues my series of articles on central banks as banks. Central bank balance sheets (in the modern era, ...
Central Bank Banking Basics
This article continues the plan outlined in the previous article “Central Banks as Banks.” As I described therein, this is ...
Central Banks As Banks
My plan is to write a draft what should become a chapter for my banking book. The inflation manuscript is ...
California’s Resilience: A Closer Look At Municipal Bonds in the Golden State
As one of the largest states in economic prowess and population, it stands to reason that California is one of ...
“So How Did You Lose Money Buying Risk-Free Bonds?”
The title of this article is deliberately silly, but there are times where I just need to be deliberately silly ...
New York Life’s Guidelines: Navigating the Allocation of Municipal Bonds
Arguably, one of the most important pieces of investing is allocation. Getting the right assets classes in the right amounts ...
Employment-Population Ratio Revisited
I have been writing some manuscript comments about labour market capacity constraints and inflation, which I hinted at in my ...
Why Municipal Bonds are Outshining Treasuries
Thanks to their par values and steady coupon rates, bonds are often seen as the ‘safe’ asset class, particularly when ...
No, QE Is Not Costless
I ran across a couple lame attempts at blaming the U.S. Treasury for not extending the duration of issuance during ...
