I didn’t find the time to spotlight the near-collapse in US March money M2 numbers, so added a comment here: M2 fell 4% yoy, with a monthly movt 2.3SDs below trend. Don’t kid yourself this is about deposits fleeing to money market funds, because MMFs are counted in M2. Rather, this is a quite genuine credit squeeze migrating from banks’ securities holdings to broader lending patterns.
Elsewhere, I talked about:
* The US’s ‘mixed’ 1Q GDP result;
* The stagnation of US core capital goods orders and shipments, and its likely continuation;
* The extremely surprising 8% qoq rise in 12m US Kalecki profits seen during 1Q;
* The regular monthly over-statement of the UK’s public sector net borrowing;
* The IMF’s faulty and damaging perorations on calculating the ‘natural interest rate’.
All this, and remember . . . . “no synthesizers”.
