Can Japanese Rates Happen Here?

The last time we visited the Oracle of Delphi was in July. Curiously enough, that was the last time I felt it necessary to proclaim that crude oil prices were headed higher.

The purpose then and in today's restatement is not to glamorize the substance-induced hallucinations of our pagan predecessors around the time of Halloween -- that would be wrong, wouldn't it? -- but to emphasize that free will does not always operate in the manner intended. After all, we baby boomers were raised to believe both religious wars and infectious diseases were things of the past. How well have those triumphs of the rational endured?

Whither Rates?

Rising energy prices certainly qualify as the dominant market story of 2004, but the persistent bull market in bonds has to be a close second. The links between these two developments have been the Federal Reserve's refusal to offset the implied tax increase from higher energy by continued monetary ease, and the decline in inflationary expectations engendered by the combination of a flattening yield curve and this implied tax increase. ...