Camera spots rare clouded leopard BBC Do Subatomic Particles Have Free Will? ScienceNews If you thought the internet was cool, wait until it goes space age Vint Cerf, Guardian ‘Why do the Italians hate us?’ Guardian. On the plight of the Roma. India bucks crunch with foreign buying spree Independent How Fuel Subsidies Drag Down […]
Read more...Reader Saboor was kind enough to send me an August 1 report by Stephen Roach, former chief economist of Morgan Stanley, now chairman of its Asian operations. It’s noteworthy in two respects. First, although Roach remains a long-term dollar bear, he made a well timed call that it was oversold, due for a rally, and […]
Read more...A good post at VoxEU by Edwin M. Truman seeks to clear up some misconceptions about sovereign wealth funds. One question is how widely these misconceptions are shared and what difference they make. For instance, #2 on Truman’s list of four myths is that sovereign wealth funds are all equally opaque. I’m not certain that […]
Read more...Brain will be battlefield of future, warns US intelligence report Guardian Lawsuits help guarantee drug safety, doctors say PhysOrg Winners Never Quit? Well, Yes, They Do New York Times Surge in repossession orders clogging up the courts Times Online Arkansas Attorney General To Payday Lenders: Shut Down Or I’ll See You In Court Consumerist (hat […]
Read more...Go read a very nice article on Nouriel Roubini in the New York Times. It doesn’t go into too much detail about his ideas, it does seek to place him among other economists. My favorable opinion of him went up when I learned that even though he has high level math skills, his academic work […]
Read more...The problem with having narrow skills, like being able to structure CDOs, is that if you lose your job, your employment prospects are limited. Unless you have personal connections that are willing to give you a chance at something where your skills might be distantly relevant (say being the CFO of a small company), most […]
Read more...Two very good posts I suggest you read immediately: one by Michael Shedlock, “Implications of the Slowing Global Economy” which at its close makes the case for deflation, and a rebuttal from Steve Waldman, “Why Inflation“. Both are thoughtful, and as much as Waldman has the stronger argument, I suspect he will not be proven […]
Read more...Here we go again. Even though equities are theoretically forward-looking (Barry Ritholtz has pointed out that that ain’t as true as most people believe), bonds are more often the canary in the mineshaft, typically going into a funk before stocks do. Even though the credit markets started getting the heebie jeebies in early June and […]
Read more...Pill use ‘affects partner choice’ BBC Fatter Britons ‘mean wider school chairs and bigger coffins’ Telegraph Western oil demand set for biggest fall in 25 years Times Online How Wall Street’s watchdog may be muzzled The Independent. A good summary with some perceptive quotes. The Great Illusion Paul Krugman The US and the Former USSR […]
Read more...Since roughly February, a solid minority of commentarors, including this blogger, have questioned the thesis that the rapid increase in oil prices was solely the function of supply and demand. It was disconcerting to see what reactions this stance elicited. There was often an unwillingness to read what was written, and instead turn the post […]
Read more...I must admit to being a bit dense. The UK Times tells us that a large amount of spec office development in London is likely to be mothballed and some may even be cancelled. What has me puzzled is why this shift is happening now. The credit contraction started in early June, went into its […]
Read more...A very good short piece at the Financial Times by Ed Morse, chief energy economist at Lehman. Readers may know that Lehman has been the staunch oil bear in contrast to Goldman’s uber oil bull posture. Note that Morse’s argument is similar, although more short-term focused, to a post we discussed, “Peak Demand.” From the […]
Read more...A classic from Tim Knight (click to enlarge):
Read more...One of the preferred ways for regulators to deal with failed or wobbly financial institutions is to get a stronger firm to take the problem off their hands. But as Jon Birger of Fortune reports in a profile of bank analyst Meredith Whitney (hat tip doc holiday), new accounting rules may get in the way: […]
Read more...The bloom has already started to come of the rose, but even so, at least one firm’s analyst saw fit to say something. Merrill Lynch has warned against the “sell energy, buy financials” trade, as reported in the Times of London: Merrill said yesterday that the unwinding of the classic bet of the credit crunch […]
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