Business Insider. The phrase “this time is different” doesn’t usually spark very positive reactions.
But I don’t care because there’s one thing about the market these days that makes me think that something is strange when compared to previous bond market sell-offs. If you follow me on twitter you will have noticed that lately I have been talking a lot about asset swaps (ASW). This is a pretty technical concept but I will try to be as straightforward as possible.
If you are still reading this then you probably know that in the fixed income market we have two broad groups of instruments – cash bonds and swaps. Real interest rates are negative: Taxing is more costly than borrowing. A remarkable Damon Linker article about the "worrying rise of reckless liberal pundits" disparages the fiscal policy views of Paul Krugman and Damon Linker without bothering to mount any counterarguments to them.
I like Linker, generally, but this is the very worst kind of common sense political pundity. A good article about public policy ought to be making some kind of non-obvious point about the world in order to get people to think about things differently. Simply responding by saying that the suggestion sounds funny is absurd.
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