Since I seldom am the bearer of upbeat news, I thought I’d pass along the cheery forecast from market strategists at Lehman and Deutsche Bank, namely, that the Standard & Poor’s 500 index will have its best six months since the second half on 1982 in the second half of 2008. I happen to remember […]
Read more...Wolfgang Munchau, in his latest Financial Times comment, “Recession is not the worst possible outcome” takes up a theme near and dear to our and many readers hearts: that policies to avoid recessions do more damage in the long run than letting slumps run their course. Munchau is hard on economists, but not the purely […]
Read more...Nouriel Roubini has an excellent, and typically sobering piece on what he sees as the denouement of what he calls Bretton Woods 2, the system we have of less than floating exchange rates (i.e., many East Asian countries + the Gulf States maintain hard pegs; China has a dirty float). Conventional wisdom has been that […]
Read more...Rubber ‘snake’ could help wave power get a bite of the energy market EurekaAlert Bletchley Park set for Lottery rescue SC Magazine Analysis: NSA Spying Judge Defends Rule of Law, Congress Set to Strip His Power Wired. Note the action would be limited to the pending case regarding telecom immunity. Challenges of $600-a-Session Patients New […]
Read more...One of the polarized and emotionally charged debates these days (Cassandra compared it to Israel vs. Palestine) is whether the runup in oil prices is due to speculation or fundamental forces. And these extreme views tend to drown out notions that complex phenomena or conflating factors might be at work. One way to get to […]
Read more...The headline above, which comes from an article in the Telegraph by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, might benefit from a better image. “Blowing up” doesn’t seem the right image to describe an economy at risk of a sudden drop in growth. But something more fitting, like engines going into stall, might have taken too much space. Aside […]
Read more...Paul Kedrosky posted on a report published in a Swiss paper (he courteously provided the English translation) of the results of a study prepared for hedge fund Bridgewater Associates that projects that total losses to the financial system from the credit crisis will reach $1.6 trillion. Note that losses taken to date are only $400 […]
Read more...Bloomberg, getting a jump on next week’s news, tells us that expectations for the Commerce Department’s report on the US trade deficit, due on July 11, is that it got worse. In general, increasing current account deficits (of which trade is the biggest component) put downward pressure on currencies. But our nasty conundrum is that […]
Read more...Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times has a story on proposed new reporting rules for credit default swaps that in passing raises the question that if implemented on the envisioned schedule (becomes effective in fiscal year financial statements after November 15, 2008, so the impact could be soon in coming), it may lead banks […]
Read more...Study: Orangutan populations declining sharply PhysOrg Italy declares Pompeii emergency BBC The Spying Started BEFORE September 11 – That’s The Whole POINT Seeing the Forest FAKE FARC Hostage Election Meddling Elaine Meniel Supkis. Her father was one of the founders of the CIA, so she probably does have some insight here. And while we are […]
Read more...Reader Juan provided a well-argued and provocatively-worded critique of so-called market fundamentalism yesterday that I thought would provide grist for thought and discussion. The main argument in favor of less regulated commerce, both domestically, in the form of deregulation, and internationally, via more liberal trade regimes, is that it generates higher growth. Juan argues that […]
Read more...I’m a bit perplexed at a Gillian Tett piece in the Financial Times in which she is shocked, shocked that managers didn’t heed warnings from subordinates that risk models weren’t all that they were cracked up to be. Her article wouldn’t seem odd, except it focuses on a really basic shortcoming, namely that many models […]
Read more...Sulston argues for open medicine BBC Species Extinction Threat Underestimated Due To Math Glitch Science Daily. And the error is huge…. Only seven years left for global warming target: UN panel chief PhysOrg Hey progressive bloggers — Stop carrying the Republican’s pollen RFK Action Front. Makes an important observation about how the party that lands […]
Read more...Credit card companies, once having had Washington in the palm of its hand, is now facing a backlash as “gotcha” fees combined with a lot of Americans paying credit card rates that a generation ago would have landed the lender in jail (no joke, on an NPR show that I participated in, a caller said […]
Read more...The Guardian has a leaked copy of a World Bank study that finds biofuels to be the biggest culprit in global food price increases. This finding will not only feed calls to scrap biofuels (save perhaps those derived from sugar) but may lead to a recognition that resource challenges cannot be pursued in isolation. In […]
Read more...