The report – released on Friday when everyone was on vacation or getting ready to head out of town, and when no one was supposed to pay attention – was a zinger: US net capital outflows soared to $153.5 billion, the largest ever recorded.
I remember well, the fiscal rectitude of the old Japan: In 1981, as the Reagan White House prepared its radical fiscal plan – famously called “riverboat gamble” – we were visited by high-ranking Japanese officials, in a state of shock.
Oil markets were dominated by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and other investment banks with their own proprietary trading operations and an army of participants on both sides of the trade. But now they’ve abandoned the oil market.
