Global Market Commentary, Analysis and Investments
Paris is silent this morning. We were practically alone on the metro.
It is the day the French celebrate the founding of their republic.
“What are you doing for the 14th,” we asked a colleague yesterday.
“Nothing. I don’t celebrate it. It’s nothing to celebrate. I only recognize religious holidays. France would have been better off without the revolution. Besides, there are more religious holidays.”
[Read more...]A question for you, Fellow Reckoner: Why do people so frequently demand more of the same poison to cure what ails them? Is it because they are stupid? Are they too busy with their workaday lives to notice the difference? Or are they being persistently lied to and indoctrinated?
Most likely, it’s a mixture of all three. Today, we address the third point.
[Read more...]“I thought this was a gas station,” huffed our Argentine friend with disgust. “I somehow forgot it was an Argentine gas station.”
Five gas trucks were parked out front of the YFP station just outside of Tucuman, where your editor and a group of friends were passing through last week on their way to Salta. Cars, vans and motorbikes of every description were queued up around the corner. The line wasn’t moving.
[Read more...]I’m the guy who just last week managed to find a plumber who would increase the water pressure in my entire house, defying government controls and thereby causing all appliances to work better. It’s not surprising that this was necessary. Government regulations have made a mess of our daily lives. Whether it is banning effective products or mandating inferior functionality in our appliances and fixtures, government’s role here is indisputably to degrade our quality of life.
[Read more...]A Brief Introduction from Eric Fry…
The last time I saw Daniel Loeb, I was riding in his private jet from Miami to New Jersey. Danny is a fascinating guy – a California surf rat turned New York hedge fund manager.
In other words, he's not your run-of-the-mill financial type. He came into the business through the backdoor and succeeded on the strength of his talents, wits and determination. He manages $3.4 billion in his hedge fund named Third Point Partners L.P. (For those folks who do not surf or who have never visited the beaches of Southern California, “Third Point? is the most distant of the three main surf breaks in Malibu).
[Read more...]Oh Bama…could this really be the end?
To be stuck inside this mobile, with the Memphis Blues again…
Bob Dylan, sort of
Who believes in the recovery now?
Robert Reich (former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton):
The only reason the economy isnt in a double-dip recession already is because of three temporary boosts: the federal stimulus (of which 75 percent has been spent), near-zero interest rates (which cant continue much longer without igniting speculative bubbles), and replacements (consumers have had to replace worn-out cars and appliances, and businesses had to replace worn-down inventories). Oh, and, yes, all those Census workers (who will be out on their ears in a month or so).
[Read more...]Governments role in an economy has never been properly explained. We will have a go at it ourselves. In a word, government betrays the future.
Government is a profoundly reactionary institution. It always favors its current clients the present generation of taxpayers over its clients of the future (who dont pay taxes and dont lobby). It provides protection against foreign invaders and domestic troublemakers. It also attempts to give its clients protection against the future.
[Read more...]Freedom is the right to tell people what they dont want to hear. Eric Arthur Blair (a.k.a. George Orwell)
That the United States of America was this week demoted from its formerly Free categorization by The Heritage Foundation to that of Mostly Free should come as no surprise to any semiliterate, moderately contemplative individual. Americans living under the tyranny of a Big Brother-style government hardly needed a Washington-based think tank and a Wall Street Journal to tell them what they dont want to hear. They can flick through a thousand channels of cable television and find plenty of that. Still, the report does raise some points worth discussing.
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Goldman to the Rescue!
More pieces are coming together. Day by day, the puzzle takes shape. Not a pretty picture.
An epic battle is taking place. Between the forces of…
…inflation and deflation
…growth and depression
…credit expansion and credit destruction
…centralization and de-centralization
[Read more...]