Whoops, that was the old brand, and it was to be led by Japan. The results were less than happy since Japan was not prepared to take “no” for an answer. But this time around, necessity as well as opportunity are leading China, Japan, and Korea to discuss moving forward on closer economic ties. In […]
Read more...The famed hedge fund investor George Soros has decided to make a serious push into clean energy, not only investing in projects but also forming an organization to weigh in on policy issues. From Bloomberg: Billionaire George Soros, looking to address the “political problem” of climate change, said he will invest $1 billion in clean-energy […]
Read more...Any Data You Give Google Can And Will Be Used Against You Clusterstock. I stand by my prejudice against G-Mail, although I am told the only way to have any hope of real privacy (aside from using complicated coded messages in chat rooms) is to use a separate laptop, only in a public hotspot, and […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal story, “The ‘Democratization of Credit’ Is Over — Now It’s Payback Time,” is a solid piece of reporting on how credit that was once offered liberally to lower income consumers has now left a very big hangover. It’s worse than with other income strata for an obvious reason, namely, low income […]
Read more...Bloomberg reports that former Harvard Fund Management CEO, now Pimco CEO Mohammed El-Erian does not buy the idea that US is returning to normal any time soon. El-Erian in particular took issue with some of Larry Summers’ sunnier prognostications: El-Erian likened Summers’s view of the economy to a three- stage rocket attempting to escape Earth’s […]
Read more...I was certain I was either reading an Onion headline or had woken up in an alternative reality when I learned that Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Huh? Even Obama had the good sense to say he didn’t deserve it: This morning, Michelle and I awoke to some surprising and humbling news. At […]
Read more...Repeat after me: the credit crisis was the result of too much cheap and easy lending. Ergo, any return to healthier practices means more expensive and less readily available debt. The problem is that the powers that be don’t quite grasp the implications, or to the extent they do, are still trying to have their […]
Read more...The $900 Baby Stroller Is Not Dead Helaine Olen, The Big Money Lowly females pick mediocre mates BBC Daily Candy in Childhood Linked to Violence in Adulthood US News and World Report. I must stress that statisticians like pointing out spurious correlations, and this may well be one. Cancer-Causing Virus Linked to Chronic Fatigue Wall […]
Read more...The New York Times has an article about the woes at the FHA which has enough omissions of relevant history so as to render it misleading at points. Mind you, the main message of the story is sound, namely, that the FHA, long a mainstay of lower-income housing, is suffering increasing losses, because it has […]
Read more...This news item verges on funny. Readers may have taken note of the fact that Citigroup was ordered by the FDIC to conduct a review of management. The floundering bank hired Egon Zehnder. The New York Times indicated that the resulting report was awfully favorable, given that the bank is one of the biggest messes […]
Read more...An unannounced but evidently coordinated effort to arrest or at least slow the fall of the dollar is underway. The Financial Times indicated that Asian central banks were aggressive dollar buyers on Thursday, but the information came via currency traders rather than an official pronouncement. Thailand, Malaysia and Taiwan made substantial purchases; Hong Kong and […]
Read more...I will confess I missed a post opportunity Thursday AM, when an alert reader sent a link to a USA Today story, “34 banks don’t pay their quarterly TARP dividends, ” but I decided to return to it precisely because it has gotten little attention: The U.S. taxpayers’ investments in smaller banks are increasingly at […]
Read more...You cannot make this stuff up. The Saudis are lobbying for foreign aid in anticipation of declining oil revenues. Hat tip reader Michael: Saudi Arabia has led a quiet campaign….demanding behind closed doors that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels. […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns Why is everyone saying consumer credit is falling? It’s not. But, everywhere I look, everybody is saying it is. I would like to be true to the data and not just take the government’s seasonally-adjusted numbers at face value. Judge for yourself. Here’s the data: This is what […]
Read more...The Fall of the Maya: ‘They Did it to Themselves’ PhysOrg Logbooks may yield climate bounty BBC Obama trapped behind wall of containment Ira Chermus, Asia Times. Frames the US problem in the Middle East as a problem of containment. An intriguing take. American troops in Afghanistan losing heart, say army chaplains Times Online More […]
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