Stories by Bloomberg and Reuters on a talk by Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist for the IMF and currently a Harvard professor, fail to mention perhaps his most relevant credential as far as opining on the US credit crunch is concerned. He and Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland have done an extensive study […]
Read more...James Carville, Clinton strategist, said, I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the President or the Pope or a .400 baseball hitter, but now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody. If a politico like Carville recognized the fixed income market as […]
Read more...Off and on, usually provoked by the release of a new study, the media will turn to the question of happiness and incomes. While the Wall Street Journal has exhibited a tendency to tout research that shows that the rich are happier, the results are far less clear-cut. Once a certain income level has been […]
Read more...We had written in mid July that money supply in the US, as measured by M1 and M2, had been contracting for several month s . Eurozone M1 growth had also fallen to near zero growth levels, and M4, the broadest measure of money in the UK, had actually dipped into negative growth territory. As […]
Read more...Look at these headlines on the same research: Future impact of global warming is worse when grazing animals are considered, scientists suggest PhysOrg versus Grazing animals may lessen Arctic warning United Press International. Guess which headline got it right. And what to make of the seeming typo? A third of new PCs being downgraded to […]
Read more...According to reports in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Lehman is shopping its asset management business, which includes Neuberger Berman (purchased for $2.6 billion in 2003), its private client brokers, and Lehman Brothers Asset Management. Now look at the valuation of the asset management business versus Lehman as a whole. From the […]
Read more...A colleague, who is close to a number of fund manager talking heads, observed that there was an uncharacteristic, gaping disparity between what many of them are saying on TV (“it’ll be over in a quarter or two”) and their far more downbeat private views. He did not offer a reason for their lack of […]
Read more...We have been skeptical of the idea that a weak dollar would be the boon for US manufacturing that many thought it would. The reason? The best possible outcome would be to see a resurgence in manufacturing, since manufacturing has higher potential for productivity gains than does the service industry (although getting back some of […]
Read more...Despite the resurgence of the dollar, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard remains unconvinced that things in the US are now as rosy as the new found (albeit guarded) optimism suggests. He comes by his view without disputing the view that the dollar rally has legs. I’m not very optimistic about that. Why? A drinking buddy with amazing connections […]
Read more...Australian plea for ‘ugly’ women BBC Olympic Closing Ceremonies To Feature Launch Of Chinese Nuclear Arsenal, Invasion Of United States The Onion Limelight Networks: Why the Olympics didn’t ‘Melt’ the Internet Jason Perlow, ZDNet Musharraf’s exit will not end Pakistan’s woe Anatol Lieven, Financial Times. Points out Musharraf’s generally unheralded accomplishments. Inflation Watch: Even Dirt […]
Read more...Readers know that we have been suspicious of Lehman’s claims that they were on sounder footing that the market was giving them credit for and had put the worst of their financial woes behind them. Our doubts were fueled by the number of open questions surrounding their claims of deleveraging and their extremely aggressive spin […]
Read more...The real estate recession has arrived, with a vengeance, in London and environs. While fading prospects for City employment and pay levels is no doubt part of the equation, the proximate cause is the dearth of mortgage finance, which bodes ill for the market’s prospects. Indeed, the headline item reflects a drop in asking prices, […]
Read more...While even moral hazard hawks generally agree that some sort of government intervention would be needed in the event of financial trouble at Fannie and Freddie, the most compelling reason was that the US, chronically dependent on foreign funding, would be ill advised to treat its money sources badly. Of the GSEs’ $5.2 trillion in […]
Read more...This is a great piece by Orville Schell in the New York Review of Books. These essays tend not to lend themselves to editing, but this one does in reviewing several works both for their immediate content and how they relate to the larger issue of China’s deeply held sense of insecurity. I’ve taken the […]
Read more...An article in today’s New York Times, “Illusions About Inflation,” by Mark Hulbert is based on the sort of research that gives economists a bad name. The piece references an a academic paper “Inflation Illusions and Stock Prices,” by John Campbell and Tuomo Vuolteenaho, that argues that investors analyze stocks incorrectly during inflationary times because […]
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