Alhambra Investment Partners, LLC

Alice M. Rivlin was Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve during its absolute apex. Nominated to that position in 1996, she stayed as number two to Alan Greenspan until 1999. During those years the...

What makes a stock bubble is really two parts. Most people might think those two parts are money and mania, but actually money supply plays no direct role. Perceptions about money do, even if mistaken...

In Ian Fleming’s 1959 spy novel Goldfinger, he makes mention of the Moscow Rules. These were rules-of-thumb for clandestine agents working during the Cold War in the Soviet capital, a...

According to orthodox theory, if interest rates are falling because of term premiums then that equates to stimulus. Term premiums are what economists have invented so as to undertake Fisherian...

This week the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release updated estimates for Q2 GDP as well as Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) and Personal Incomes for July. Accompanying those latter two...

Orthodox monetary theory tells us that central banks matter, a lot. Monetary policy is supposed to be the difference in everything from economy to currency. If one central is doing one thing and...

Today’s topic du jour isn’t even a word but an abbreviated name. Whereas yesterday markets were somewhat spooked by a relatively obscure British firm, Provident, today they are again by...

In April 2011, the European Central Bank’s staff and Governing Council were all optimistic. They had suffered through the panic and Great “Recession” and then the relapse in 2010...

Why are profit margins persistently high? With decent earnings this quarter, corporate profits as a % of GDP will approach (maybe exceed) 10% again. That is abnormally high compared to the period 1960...

Adding to the FOMC’s general inflation confusion about money and economy, all the major factors it is supposed to be competent about, policymakers are also having trouble figuring out why as...

Last week the Commerce Department reported wholesale sales in June 2017 had risen by 5.6% year-over-year (unadjusted). Having increased by nearly 10% in May, and by the most in five years in January,...

When the Federal Reserve was founded in 1913, there was no role for it in the marketing and selling of government debt. This wasn’t an oversight on the part of Congress. For more than two years...

In October 2015, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Bill Dudley admitted that the US economy might be slowing. In the typically understated fashion befitting the usual clown-show, he merely was...

Brexit, Trump’s election, even the Bank of Japan rumored to be thinking helicopter. Last year was the year of thinking differently and therein was hope. No matter how many times some markets and...

Ben Bernanke, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve, told Congress in March 2007 that subprime was contained. He will rightfully be remembered in infamy for that, but that wasn’t the most...

How do we measure what has been lost over the last ten years? There is no single way to calculate it, let alone a correct solution. There are so many sides to an economy that choosing one risks...