Euro Crisis, Part II
Remember the euro-zone crisis? Front page news for weeks, and then…nothing. Could they have found the secret formula for eliminating an overwhelming debt load without hyperinflation or depression? Nah....
View ArticleThe Low-Interest-Rate Trap
Pretend for a second that you recently retired with a decent amount of money in the bank, and all you have to do is generate a paltry 5% to live in comfort for the rest of your days. But lately that’s...
View ArticleJunk Bond ETFs: Another Big Short
Sometimes the market makes it too easy. Check this out: Desire for income drives high-yield bond ETFs’ popularity BOSTON (MarketWatch) — Investors fed up with U.S. stocks’ negative returns over the...
View ArticleMore Bad Ideas and Broken Promises
While we’re on the subject, consider the fact that pension funds are once again loading up on “alternative investments”, this time in the form of hedge funds: Pensions Leap Back to Hedge Funds Public...
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Housing’s Next Leg Down And QE3
That US home prices are once again trending down is no secret. But just how bad things are likely to get is not yet well understood. Consider this from the Atlantic’s Daniel Indiviglio: Chart of the...
View ArticleIs This It? Or Can They Fool Us Again?
A stressful weekend for the world’s bankers and politicians, followed by a sleepless Monday, and all with a single question rattling around in their heads: How can we fool them again? For decades now...
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Is a Debt Jubilee the Next Big Meme?
The idea of a “debt jubilee” — that is, a wide-spread forgiveness of debt as a way to reset the US financial system — has been bouncing around for a while. But it hasn’t gained mainstream traction...
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Welcome to the Currency War, Part 4: Corporate Revenues Plunge
The Eurozone meltdown has sent capital pouring into (temporarily) safe haven currencies like the US dollar, which rose by nearly 12% between October 2011 and August 2012. This sounds like a good thing...
View ArticleNullification Goes Mainstream; States Defy Washington on Drugs and Health Care
As the federal government gradually assimilates the rest of the country, a few states have begun to fight back. From the Kansas City Star: No state-run health insurance exchanges in Missouri or Kansas...
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Why We’re Ungovernable, Part 5: Japan “Would Be Manageable, If Only…”
Japan’s government has fallen — again: Two-Party Japan Democracy Undone in 39 Months as DPJ Crumbles It took 54 years for Japan’s politics to produce a viable opposition party, and 39 months for it to...
View ArticleDoug Noland: “Significant Unavoidable Cost”
In this week’s Credit Bubble Bulletin Prudent Bear’s Doug Noland makes a crucial point: It’s not inflation that the U.S. risks by issuing trillions of dollars of new debt, but “a crisis of confidence...
View ArticleA Sign of Things to Come?
This isn’t how it normally goes. For the past couple of decades — that is, during the parabolic phase of the global credit bubble — the financial markets have responded to US Fed announcements of...
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What Gold’s Bull Market (That’s Right, Bull Market) Means For Miners
One of the oddities of floating exchange rates is that they cause people to view the world in terms of their own national currency. For Americans that means looking out through a window that is...
View Article“America and Britain Must Be Very Worried”
It’s been obvious for some time that America’s trading partners are caught in a financial catch-22: If China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia keep accepting dollars in return for their cars, toys and oil,...
View ArticleReasons to Worry About Gold (In the Short Run)
Let’s start with a lesson that every investor eventually learns: Short-term trends are almost impossible to play consistently. I base this on both common sense (lots of smart people are trying to do...
View ArticleLong Bonds and the End of Our World
Nouriel Roubini warns that an asset bubble is building as money chases commodities. Asian countries are considering capital controls to stem the inflow of hot money. The Wall Street Journal reports...
View ArticleCan You Afford Fries With That?
This showed up in my mailbox this morning: THE ECONOMY IS SO BAD………. The economy is so bad that I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail. It’s so bad, I ordered a burger at McDonalds and the kid...
View ArticleHalf-Way to Dumb Money
Everybody, it seems, now has a price target for gold and a scenario to get it there. This is fun on a lot of levels, but the price target thing is a bit of a distraction. Gold, like every other bull...
View ArticleThe Best Volatility Play
Take a look at the chart below, and note the unnaturally smooth 80% decline. Kind of makes you think “imminent bankruptcy”. But now consider that the security in question is 100% guaranteed not to fall...
View ArticleTest Post
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