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Joe Leider

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Economics

Your own, personal inflation rate

February 19, 2015 by Leave a Comment

This is going to be a strange post. I’ve been battling a flu, so my mind is a little less rule-bound, a little more fluid (no pun intended). I stumbled upon this article at ECONLOG: Robert Murphy on the Minimum Wage. From a liberal perspective, the minimum wage guarantees a bare minimum income so you […]

Filed Under: Economics

The division between capital & labor matters now more than ever

February 18, 2015 by Leave a Comment

There’s a lot of speculation on Fed moves. Some think the Fed will raise interest rates soon, that inflation is just around the corner. Others fear the economy still isn’t strong enough for tighter monetary policy. With inflation still weak, why not wait before raising rates? For investors, this could have major implications on stock […]

Filed Under: Economics

Money is two things, and the source of all our problems

February 13, 2015 by 2 Comments

I read a good book review in the Economist about Making Money: Coin, Currency and the Coming of Capitalism. This one sentence captures the problems faced by central banks around the world. In essence, history has seen a battle between money’s role as a store of value (which requires a restricted supply) and its role […]

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The Fed must tolerate higher asset prices to achieve higher wages

February 11, 2015 by Leave a Comment

I’ve been thinking a lot about inflation, banks and China. After reading “France, Gold and the Great Depression”, I was wondering how the western world’s “secular stagnation” could be related to China’s rise. Before the Great Depression, France and the rest of the developed world had opposite problems. France had just gone through a strong […]

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Buying houses, debt traps and expectations

February 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment

My wife and I are looking at houses, and I’m struck by the amount of activity happening around us (southwest of Portland, OR). Especially in new developments, every office we walk into has multiple couples signing contracts. Talking to a mortgage broker, I was surprised to learn that the income-to-debt ratio they accept is 45% […]

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Is more inflation just around the corner? What bank balance sheets say

February 4, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Markets seem confused as to whether demand is now solid and deflation fears a thing of the past, or if it is just about to come back with a vengeance. We’ve had solid job growth (inflation!), tanking oil prices (deflation!), Swiss National Bank refusal to follow Euro devaluation (deflation!), ECB quantitative easing (inflation in Europe? […]

Filed Under: Economics

The evolution of monetary thinking through books

February 3, 2015 by 1 Comment

I’ve been on a reading / re-reading spree. The below books (+Bitcoin) each have a unique perspective on money. They also show how our attitudes around money are changing. Some will be held up by the right (Hayek) as masterstrokes against an overbearing state. Others will be promulgated by the left (Keynes) as why intervention […]

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Inflation, inequality & poker

January 29, 2015 by Leave a Comment

We’re hearing more about inequality, even from perennial Republican candidate for President Mitt Romney. Liberal economists like Thomas Piketty and Paul Krugman bemoan inequality in America. Some studies have even suggested that the liberation of women has contributed to the problem (educated working women marry educated working men, giving them a larger share of national […]

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The fall of the dollar, and the rise of private money

January 28, 2015 by Leave a Comment

In early medieval times, the Plantagenet kings of England were deemed successful based on their marshal valor, their aggressiveness, their ability to rule their nobility. Weak kings who paved the way for future progress (like John who signed the Magna Carta) were deemed failures. Strong kings like Richard the Lionheart, Edward I (longshanks) or Edward […]

Filed Under: Economics

What is money?

January 22, 2015 by Leave a Comment

I’m going to take a step back from writing about specific economic policies or investment ideas and ask the general question, what is money? I’ll try not to talk about it being a medium of account or a store of value for simplicity. It is those things, but on a more basic level, money is […]

Filed Under: Economics

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