Monday, February 09, 2009

The, er, credit, er, crunch


No wonder most of us have difficulty understanding the financial equivalent of the matter-antimatter drive powering the USS Enterprise. You'd think lending would have decreased, wouldn't you? Smoke and mirrors...

4 comments:

NMMM.NU said...

can you explain what do you mean?

Sackerson said...

Hi, Nikolay. Lending is supposed to have been contracting sharply and M4 is supposedly a measure of bank lending, yet these stats up to end December don't appear to reflect that.

James Higham said...

So, are we in a crunch or not?

Sackerson said...

Hi, James. I think Anthony Worrall-Thompson would confirm that we are; it's just that these M4 stats don't seem to be much of a guide to what's happening. Funny that we can measure the height of Everest down the last millimetre or two, but even long-practised experts (e.g. Brad Setser) have to guess where the money is and where it's going.