Today’s update on weekly jobless claims delivered a wallop—in the right direction for a change. It may be another head fake, but on its face this morning’s report is the best news in months for this measure of the job market. It’s only one number, of course, and so all the usual caveats apply. All the more so given the volatility in this data series and the fact that we’ve been hoodwinked many times before in thinking that the stat du jour on this front was a sign of improvement in the labor market only to find that, well, it wasn’t. But for the moment, there’s a new talking point on Wall Street and it’s a refreshing change of pace from the usual gloomy news.
Daily Archives: October 28, 2010
THE STRANGE WORLD OF MONETARY ECONOMICS IN 2010
GMO’s Jeremy Grantham, surely one of the finest investment strategists of our time, is no fan of the Federal Reserve’s track record over the past decade or so. In fact, he’s gone on record with sharp criticisms of the central bank. This is an institution, after all, that’s made mistakes, to say the least. But how to proceed? In his latest quarterly missive, Grantham remains skeptical that the Fed has a silver bullet solution up its sleeve for the various problems that ail the economy at the moment. He did, however, suggest in so many words that Bernanke and company should adopt an inflation target. A reasonable idea, but one that comes with some assumptions on the mechanics–assumptions that complicate the analysis at the moment on what the Fed should, and shouldn’t do, for those of a particular world view.