Barclays co-head of interest rate strategy Michael Pond says the 10yr note will rise to 2.70 or 2.75 by year-end, which he says is fair value if economic data supports no recession—Bloomberg video below. He made two passing remarks about rates not rising this much if bond prices “get another bump from Europe” but was [...]

Some weekend Originations links: recession and housing watch, market outlook. -No Rise In Home Prices Until 2020 (CNBC) -Housing Still U.S. Economy’s Albatross (WSJ) -ECRI: Recession Is Inescapable (

It’s very early, but this is my favorite candidate gaffe of the 2012 election so far. Mitt Romney last week talking about his economic plan (video below, starting at 2:00): “It’s about 150 pages with 59 different policy ideas. If you don’t happen to get on in your hand, you can go on Amazon Kindle, [...]

The current extent of economic malaise has been greatly underestimated. I once again turn to Rick Davis of Consumer Metrics Institute to explain. When we measure GDP we always adjust it for inflation.  We want the economy to be growing because more good and services are purchased by comsumers, companies and the government not because the [...]

-It’s Not What Bernanke Will Say This Week, It’s Why (ReformedBroker) -Can Google+ Replace Your Company’s Intranet (VentureBeat) -Blogging Is A Long-Term Proposition (AbnormalReturns) -Do Loan Modifications Increase Unemployment? (WSJ) -The Recession of 2011? (John Mauldin) -QE3 On Way? (PragCap)

Rates ended even last week, capping off a three week down trend. Below I discuss the direction of rates from these record low levels. But first, a word on rate headlines vs. reality. Nearly all ‘record low’ rate headlines hit Thursdays. That’s the day Freddie Mac releases its weekly rate survey covering the previous week. [...]

There are no economic fundamentals today but we have a market environment which looks as if investors are close to completely losing confidence in the health of the economy which could see a significant sell-off of equities and a move to cash, Treasuries and gold. This might send mortgages to record low rates as long [...]

Today Weakonomics proposes some new names to replace The Great Recession. Worth the read, link below. To this post I’ll also add three items: one suggestion for a new name to describe the state of the U.S., and two of my favorite pop culture economic labeling riffs of recent years. (1) Nation Declined. Which has [...]

Why is the jobs market not recovering? To a large extent, the state of the jobs market is what will determine the outcome of the 2012 elections. To start, I want to make clear that it has always been my belief that there is little that the President and Congress can do to create jobs. [...]

The U.S. Economy is in a bad state. What can be done? I will offer an agenda: (1) Reconsider our participation in the Basel accords and recognize that purely commercial banks have a different set of risks that the now hybridized investment/commercial banks. These regulations penalize purely commercial banks by demanding higher capitalization while insanely [...]