May 2011

Google is loaded o the gills with cash, yet today they are pricing up a bond issue. he Financial Times is reporting that Google will raise as much as $3 billion of 3, 5 and 10-year money. Here's my question: why do this? Acquisition:…

There is a difference between economic growth from mere factor mobilisation and economic growth from increased productivity. One requires a lot more capital investment and debt than the other. If and when capital investment growth slows,…

If the facts go against us, we just dismiss them by selective editing or simply making stuff up to support our original thinking. When it comes to politics, when it comes to economics, the facts don't really matter. Human reasoning is not…

Arguably the 30 year US bull market in bonds is at a close. What's clear is that yields are exceedingly low and real yields are now negative. In effect bondholders are often paying the US government to lend funds when inflation is taking…

Below is the text from the letter from US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to Congress via Harry S. Reid, Majority Leader of the Senate, informing Reid that the debt ceiling has been breached.

Frederick Sheehan argues that we are overleveraged, undercollateralized, and accentuating these unsustainable imbalances through economic policy to smooth out volatility.

The dollar on its front foot amid concerns over Greek debt woes and global growth worries. Ecofin meeting (15:00 GMT) to discuss Greece and finalize aid package for Portugal; EUR/USD tests recent lows near $1.405. Equities/commodities…

If the strongest argument against going back to the Drachma always was that this would imply default, now that default is coming, why not allow Greece to devalue? As Krugman says, the issue isn’t whether Greece would openly decide to exit…

Though, in the eyes of Microsoft executives, virtually any outcome might seem better than letting the company fall into the hands of Google, which still has no strong foothold in social or communication software - one of the few online…

The gold-silver ratio (GSR) measures how many ounces of silver one can purchase for an ounce of gold, on a certain date. Reference to the ratio has a long history. One of the first mentions was that upon the death of Alexander the Great,…