Global Market Commentary, Analysis and Investments
U.S. taxpayers have lost $133 billion from TARP — the abominable acronym inflicted on us by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson — a new report out this morning shows.
We begin another week pulled in two directions: In one direction lie unresolved failures in policy… and the mayhem it has wrought in the financial system. In the other lie breakthroughs in energy and biotechnology.
[Read more...]Yesterday, investors digested the big news from Wednesday…the Fed’s announcement that it would continue handing out money, asking nothing in return, for the next three years.
Stocks went down. Oil stayed under $100. The yield on the 10-year note fell under 2%. And gold just kept going up.
[Read more...]Yesterday, Europe was back in the news. Whenever Europe is in the headlines, the headlines are bad. And the ideas behind the headlines are absurd. In fact, it is amazing how many crackpot ideas the press can throw at you in a single day.
The immediate problems in Europe were two:
First, it looked like Portugal was going the way of Greece. It would soon need another bailout, said the papers.
[Read more...]We went around the world last week. We wish we could say we learned something. But modern travel has been standardized…and culture and technology have been “globalized”…so that the more you travel the more you feel you never left home.
“How was your trip around the world?” asked our assistant when we got back in the office in Baltimore.
[Read more...]Everyone knows that when the clock strikes midnight for Cinderella, the carriage turns back into a pumpkin, the horse into mice and the jeweled gown into rags. The spell is broken and reality returns. I keep thinking of China in this context.
One of the big questions of the year is whether China blows up or not. Hard landing or soft? When will the clock strike midnight on the Chinese? Things are slowing down, and it feels like it’s getting late.
[Read more...]An Interview with Doug Casey, by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator
[Skype rings. It’s Doug calling. Sounds like he’s got a fistful of papers he’s waving around in agitation.]
L: Hola, Doug — what’s on your mind?
Doug: Well, you know I try not to read much in the popular press. It’s mentally unsanitary. But occasionally, a few things catch my notice. For example, I’ve got an article I tore out of the September 3 Wall Street Journal — it’s been in a stack of papers for a couple of months, and I just uncovered it. I couldn’t decide, when I first tore it out, whether it was simply beneath contempt or worth commenting on. It’s an absolutely shocking indictment of the depth to which the moral and intellectual character of what was once America has descended. The title is How to Turn in Your Neighbor to the IRS. The author’s theme is that the IRS is offering big rewards to people who turn in tax cheats — but there are catches. As though the depravity of denouncing your neighbors to a ruthless, brutal, and predatory government bureaucracy were a good thing, as long as one is careful in going about it.
[Read more...][Originally published on February 6, 2009]
For the last several months, the sordid tales of greed and deception issuing from Wall Street have read like the story line from a riveting suspense thriller. But the most recent tales are so unbelievably gruesome that they resemble the story line from a documentary about Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy…or some other serial killer.
[Read more...]Not much action at the end of last week… Gold closed the week over $1,600. Oil remained over $100.
The show goes on!
We are watching the destruction of an empire. All empires must go away sometime. They are natural things. And nature puts a time bomb in everything she creates.
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Persistent Questions About the Future of the US Economy
We’ve covered a lot of ground over the past few months. Not much action in the markets yesterday, so let’s stop here and take stock.
What we know so far…
First, it was clear from the get-go that there was a bubble in finance and housing. The only people who couldn’t see it were the people in finance and housing…and the feds. It reached its peak in ’05-’07…then, exploded.
[Read more...]