Macro Updates

Aug
31

Jay Powell's Jackson Hole speech

Last week Fed Chair Jay Powell gave his annual speech at the Kansas City Fed's Jackson Hole Symposium. While Powell didn't really say anything that was all that new, his comments were still concerning in several ways. In this video post I explain why.  Leave you thoughts and comments below.

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Aug
18

What is the Something in “Something is Broken” in the US economy?

This week Fortune ran an article on some of the academic research done by Ufuk Akcigit at the University of Chicago on Business Dynamism. The basic idea goes something like this: in the long run economic growth is driven by technological progress and innovation. That is no big surprise as we knew this from Solow's work in the 1950s. But what makes ...

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May
16

American consumers: debt and inflation

In a recent LinkedIn post, personal financial planning guru Richard Archer pointed out that US consumer credit card debt is pushing up against the $1 Trillion mark.  Yes, that is a "T" as in "TRILLION". Richard pointed out that with the average interest rate on these cards at over 24% APR, if/when the economy slows, increases in defaults ...

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Apr
14

Is it "greedflation?"

There is a new term being battered about these days in terms of what is going on in the macroeconomy: greedflation. It goes to the question: what is the main driving force behind the recent runup in consumer prices? Or more simply: why is there inflation? The "traditional" or "conventional" answer to these questions is usually some combination of t...

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  643 Hits
Mar
31

Mr. Powell’s data problems

 When I was learning applied econometrics, I remember my classmates and I kept hearing a phrase from our professors over and over again: "garbage in, garbage out." The point they were making is  as budding empirical economists it was important  we understood "the quality" of the data we are using in our analysis. They pushed us ...

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Mar
24

Another interesting week...

While things have not been AS crazy this week compared to last week, it still has been "interesting."  The Fed decided to raise interest rates by 25 bps which has many of us scratching our heads.  The repeated question is simply: what is the Fed thinking?  Campbell Harvey from Duke sums things up nicely in this LinkedIn pos...

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Mar
16

A Very Bad Week in the Banking Industry

 This week has seen the second and third largest bank failures in the United States. In addition, over the last few days the stock of Credit Suisse have taken a huge beating. People are asking: what is going on? The quick answer is: bad bank management and a lack of understanding of economic history. Let me explain. Over the past weekend Silic...

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Sep
09

Problems with the Fed's "looking out the window"

 In the MacroUpdate I discuss the problems we have with the Fed, under Jay Powell, conducting monetary policy by "looking out the window."   Tell me your thoughts and be sure to share & subscribe. Note: I have been having some technical issues with making videos but now thanks to Kris Maxwell and others I am crawling up the ...

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Jul
11

What to make of recently released macro data? History may inform us.

On Friday July 7, 2022, the US Department of Labor announced that non-farm payroll jobs grew by 372,000 in June 2022 while the seasonally adjusted U-3 unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.6%. This is where it has been for the previous 3 months. The seasonally adjusted U-6 stood at 6.7% in June, down from 7.1% in May 2022 (you may rec...

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Jun
30

June 29, 2022 Macro Update

June-29-screen-shot-MacroUpdate

June 29th Macro Update. In this MacroUpdate,  I chat about some recent developments in macroeconomic policy:  the Biden Administration's  suggested gas tax holiday and the Fed's role in the rise of inflation.  Feel free to subscribe to the MacroUpdates and look around the rest of the BrandlTheEconomist.com webpage. I will be add...

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Jun
26

Brandl The Economist interview with Randy Bryce

 Earlier this month I sat down (electronically) with Randy Bryce. For those of you who don't know Randy (better known by his Twitter handle @IronStache) here is an all too brief summary of this Renaissance man. He is an US Army veteran, cancer survivor, father, iron worker (if you have ever seen a high-rise building or a bridge being construct...

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Jun
14

My interview with KXAN - Austin and inflation

KXAN-interview-Screenshot Screenshot from KXAN Interview with Mike Brandl

Here is an edited version of my interview with Taylor Girtman at KXAN on June 14, 2022. You can watch an abbreviated view of the interview (and see what was broadcast) by following this link. Here is the link to the interview reproduced below: https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/inflation-may-impact-austins-housing-market-rural-areas/ AUSTIN (KX...

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Jun
08

Giving a SWIFT kick to the Russian financial system

On February 22, 2022 in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine a large collection of nations, including the United States and members of the European Union, decided to selectively ban Russian banks from using the SWIFT system. Suddenly this relative obscure part of the global financial system was cast into the spotlight. So, what is the SWIFT sys...

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Jun
02

Recent US labor market developments: what is going on?

Labor markets and labor economics are often viewed as being under the privy of "microeconomics." Yet, changes in labor markets can (and often do) have significant macroeconomic impacts. And there are some economists who develop macroeconomic models with labor market disruptions. So with that in mind, let's take a look at two recent developments in ...

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Mar
26

Q&A 25 March 2020

Some of my Rice Business Students asked if I would do a virtual Q&A session on the current state of the economy given the rapidly spreading coronavirus. Rice's Zoom capped the number of participants at 300 which we hit very quickly. Thus, some people who wanted to join in could not. At the end I took questions people had typed in during the cha...

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