Narrow Banking and the Old Chicago Plan

‘Narrow Banking’ Gains New Adherants

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21603431-radical-proposal-making-finance-safer-resurfaces-narrow-minded

Macroeconomics Is Not Easy

Noah Smith offers some interesting insights into what makes macroeconomics so challenging:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-06-05/what-happens-when-the-economy-baffles-economists

European Central Bank Gets Serious About Deflation Threat

ECB Focuses on Deflation Risk

Eurozone inflation rate -

Source: ECB

The ECB cut its deposit rate (essentially, Eurozone banks now face a charge for holding excess reserves at the ECB) to minus 0.1 percent. ECB also lowered its benchmark interest rate to a record low of 0.15 percent.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-05/draghi-unveils-historic-measures-on-deflation-threat.html

Related,

Declining Yields in Europe

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21603448-return-old-relationship-between-asset-prices-land-falling-yield

How Strong is the German Economy?

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21603439-recent-vigour-hides-underlying-weaknesses-europes-leading-economy-clouds-ahead

Central Banks and the Bond Market

The following is from an interesting Bloomberg piece:

“After unprecedented stimulus by the Fed and other central banks made many traditional models useless, investors and analysts alike are having to reshape their understanding of cheap and expensive as the global market for bonds balloons to $100 trillion. With the world’s biggest economies struggling to grow and inflation nowhere in sight, catchphrases such as “new neutral” and “no normal” are gaining currency to describe a reality where bonds are rallying the most in a decade.”

Business Strategy Lesson ... About Business Schools

Leading Management Gurus Michael Porter and Clay Christensen Disagree on Harvard Business School’s Strategy for Online Course Offerings:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/business/business-school-disrupted.html

Key highlight from the excellent NYTIMES article:

“Here is where the two professors’ differences come to a head. In the Porter model, all of a company’s activities should be mutually reinforcing. By integrating everything into one, cohesive fortification, “any competitor wishing to imitate a strategy must replicate a whole system,” Professor Porter wrote.

In the Christensen model, these very fortifications become a liability. In the steel industry, which was blindsided by new technology in smaller and cheaper minimills, heavily integrated companies couldn’t move quickly and ended up entombed inside their elaborately constructed defenses.”

Global Fertility Rates

Cool Graphic:
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21603024-why-shrinking-populations-may-be-no-bad-thing-quality-time

Japan's Extraordinary Demographics:
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21603076-first-time-proper-debate-starting-about-immigration-incredible-shrinking-country