July 2008

I swear Merrill just wrote down $9.4 billion and sold its stake in Bloomberg two weeks ago. So why are they in the news AGAIN writing down another $5.7 billion? It's frightening to think this company is still a going concern. The company…

For someone like me who flew nearly 150 flights in 2007, airport lounges are great bonus. Kicking back at Toronto's Pearson airport with all the free Molson you want makes airport delays doable. And the children's room with near…

IMF sees no end in sight to credit crisis - FTBBVA boosted by expansion in U.S. and China - FTFormer Google engineers unveil new search engine - National PostCommodities such as oil could be the latest bubble about to burst - Roger Bootle,…

Canada is one of the last bubble markets to hit the wall. Buoyed by the commodities boom in the west, Canada looked set to keep on an upward path even while its largest trading partner, the U.S. had already started to see a bust. But,…

I fully anticipate this will happen, so the question becomes: what will the Fed do?The FDIC stepped in at two banks over the weekend, 1st National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank. These banks failed as a result of construction loans…

"The Economist" has developed the Big Mac Index as a way to determine if currencies are overvalued or undervalued. The thought is that a McDonald's Big Mac being pretty much the same everywhere around the world, one should expect the cost…

Given my recent prediction for a positive GDP number in Q2 for the U.S. and after another positive number from Q1, how could I maintain that the U.S. is in recession?It's simple. The commonly-held version of recession is misguided. Most…

In reading about profit increases of some U.S. multinationals due to robust overseas business and the weak dollar, while the U.S. economy faces a protracted downturn, it has occurred to me that the divergence between U.S. worker and…

After the United States started its 'Guns and Butter' exercise under President Johnson and eventually de-linked from gold in 1971, its economy has become ever more leverage- and debt-propelled. Interestingly, the result has been a…