There are some interesting things one learns in putting together a book. Blogging is a lot like working in watercolors, speed and confidence in execution are key, versus the oil-painting medium of a book. And you learn how many times you wind up scraping the canvas and reworking. I’m up to the sixth revision of […]
Read more...Avoiding ‘wheelies’ slows animals BBC It’s Time to Learn From Frogs New York Times Most Expensive Real Estate Markets in the World Paul Kedrosky The 8 Secret Credit Scores Consumerist Central banking as partisan politics Willem Buiter The New Homeowner Hallucination: “We’ll Rent For A Year And Then Sell When The Market Comes Back” Clusterstock […]
Read more...Submitted by Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge Complete collapse in foreign interest for GSE debt: North American holdings of the latter have increased from 50% to 80% of total notional in one year! Primary Dealers are selling corporates in droves in order to purchase Treasuries and MBS under the Fed’s gun. Primary Dealers now have […]
Read more...Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. My favorite strategist, Martin Roberge of Dundee Securities, sets the record straight on the Golden Cross in his latest strategy comment: Much has been said about the positive implications of this week’s Golden Cross (GC) on the S&P 500. However, little emphasis has been put on downside […]
Read more...Enjoy, and thank reader Michael M:
Read more...Apologies for the absence of a substantive post, Still a bit off sync, and having to write about ergodicity, which is enough to put any mere mortal on refry. I hope to do a real post later today. Monkeys fall for visual illusion BBC Anti-Abuse Bus Stop Ad Only Batters Women When Nobody’s Looking Gizmodo […]
Read more...The optimists that have long assumed that the dollar will continue to reign supreme due to lack of alternatives have just have their sanguine views challenged as China threw down the gauntlet on coming up with an alternative, non-country-specific, reserve currency. The US in fact had this option at the time of Bretton Woods and […]
Read more...Apologies for being a bit lean on posts tonight. Blogger and some other sites were inaccessible for about two hours, which I think was a Michael Jackson effect, Internet wide overload due to people reading news and viewing his music videos. I was very taken with his performances, particularly the dance routines, and thought his […]
Read more...In a bit of synchornicity, we had two posts on credit cards yesterday. Lo and behold, Versus released a new song parody on the joys of plastic:
Read more...A paradox arises to the extent that it is true that the market is dependent on normative underpinning (to provide the pre-contractural foundations such as trust, cooperation, and honesty) which all contractural relations require: The more people accept the neoclasical paradigm as a guide for their behavior, the more the ability to sustain a market […]
Read more...Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. More on pensions apartheid. Bill Tufts of Fair Pensions for All sent me this Globe and Mail blog entry, In feudal age of pensions, renaissance must come: He calls it our “Modern Feudal System.” A system where a few have a lot and the majority have – […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. Here’s a conspiracy theory for you. As I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, I ill keep this one pretty simple. Here’s the chain of events. Back in late September when the world was falling apart, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner and Hank Paulson were all desperate to […]
Read more...Consensus forecasts had expected a modest fall in initial unemployment claims this week; instead they increased by 15,000. Similarly, continuing claims rose by 29,000. Bloomberg still tried to put a happy face on this not-aligned-green-shoots story. This was the third and longest paragraph of a mere four paragraph report: Recent economic data shows some areas […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. During Alan Greenspan’s tenure at the helm of the Federal Reserve, he was often accused of using monetary policy to target asset markets so as to keep the party going. In short, Alan Greenspan was seen by many, including myself, as the bubble blower-in-chief. All of this came […]
Read more...Swine flu puts porpoise on brink BBC 15 Year Old Invents Algae-Powered Energy System Inhabitat Planted Questions Katia Bachko Columbia Journalism Review Old School Banker Independent Accountant MTA Sells Subway Station Names Cryptogon (hat tip reader Skippy). You cannot make this stuff up. Obama and ‘Regulatory Capture’ Thomas Frank, Wall Street Journal World’s wealthy lose […]
Read more...