Hello. I’m Burnham Banks and I studied economics in the late 80s and early 90s. I’m still studying economics today and am still no wiser. This blog is a journal, a record of my thoughts and experiences. If we are destined to repeat our mistakes, we should at least repeat them faithfully. If not, then perhaps the past is a mischievous guide and we should try something new.
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UK Mini Budget 2022

I was trawling around London soliciting views mostly from the main beneficiaries of the Chancellor’s tax cuts announced 23 September. How? Why? What? The problem with the budget is not that it doesn’t make sense, we can make anything sensible given enough experts’ opinions. The problem was marketing, communications, governance, those sorts of inconveniences. A
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Investing Responsibly and Thoughtfully. ESG and all that.

ESG investing has been an excellent growth opportunity for the investment industry to demonstrate innovation and introduce new products and services. For investors seeking to obtain both purpose and returns, the experience has been mixed. I believe that the human species seeks to make things better, that we are inherently good, even if our efforts
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ECB in a pickle. How about a Eurosystem CDO? Or restart unconditional LTROs

June 15, 2022. The ECB called a special meeting to discuss surging bond yields of peripheral member states. With the inflation problem in Europe, you would have thought the ECB would have welcomed higher rates. Not so. The ECB has a very difficult task. It needs to maintain financial and economic stability, keeping a lid
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ESG? Just Make Things Better

I’ve been attending ESG conferences these last couple of months, speaking, a bit tentatively, at some of them. I’ve been thinking a lot about ESG and don’t really know what to make of it. It seems to try to capture many things in many ways and in doing so makes things complicated and hard to
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Inflation and Growth 2022 and beyond.

In the immediate months following the COVID shock in 2Q 2020, Fed and market had expected inflation to be transitory, basically rising from 2% to 4% and fading back to 2%. This proved to be wrong. I had expected a peak of 6-8% fading to 3-4%. From June 2020, we shorted treasuries to hedge all
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