About this site

This site keeps a record of the long downturn: the banking crisis of 2008 and the fifteen years of policy, argument and consequence that followed it. Its essays are grouped by subject, dated, and kept at the addresses where an argument about that subject was first published on this domain, so that anyone who arrives from an old link finds a page about the thing the link was pointing at.

The site is run independently. It does not claim continuity with any earlier publication at this address, does not carry bylines, and does not speak for anyone who wrote here before. The essays are written from the public record: the data releases, statements, filings and reports that the arguments were made from at the time, cited where they can still be found.

How the essays are made

Each page keeps the subject, the structure and the date of the argument it stands for, and states that argument as it was made, including where it was wrong. Where enough time has passed for the argument to have been tested, a later note at the foot of the page says how it came out. The notes are the reason the site exists: a forecast without a check is an opinion, and a record of forecasts with their checks is something rarer.

Subjects

• Economic predictions: the recession calls, year by year, and their results.
• The Fed: quantitative easing, the yield curve, the balance sheet and the soft landing.
• Banks and money: bank failures, bail-ins, the cashless society and the digital dollar.
• Inflation and jobs: prices, wages, the labour market and how each is measured.
• Markets: stocks, bonds, housing and retail.
• Government and media: deficits, debt, and how the news about them is made.

What the site does not do

It sets no cookies, runs no scripts, carries no advertising, sells nothing and asks for nothing. It loads from one server and contacts no other. Corrections to any page are welcome at the address on the contact page, and are made in the page they concern, with the date of the change.