2011

Contagion in the sovereign debt crisis has already spread to Spain and Italy. David Blanchflower believes it may spread yet further to France. On Bloomberg, Blanchflower led off saying this would not be surprising, pointing to the dithering…

I decided to look at what President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) were saying in their annual reports for 2005-2007 about the massive real estate bubble, epidemic of accounting control fraud and mortgage fraud, the resultant…

Something interesting is being played out. Margin traders--the famed Mrs Watanabe-- at the Tokyo Futures Exchange--have amassed a large short yen position. There are about 900k short yen contracts as of today and about 364k are short yen…

There seems to be an aggrieved sense on the part of creditor nations that after providing so much helpful funding to undisciplined debtors, the creditors are going to be left with losses. There is, they claim, something terribly unfair…

You tell me.

Safe havens trade on the back foot as risk appetite resurgences; BoC expected to remain on hold. Options pricing suggests that the market is prepared for the worst ahead of Thursday’s summit. In the EM space macroprudential measures in…

Coburn Ups Ante in Debt Ceiling Standoff, Pushes Plan to Save $9 Trillion - FoxNews.com (tags: debt-ceiling fiscal austerity) 6 Easy Steps to Falling Asleep Fast…

If I had to make parallels for today's time in history, I still say this is Hoover’s time, not Roosevelt’s and certainly not Clinton’s.

At the weekend, I saw three articles asking essentially the same question about sovereign debt crisis contagion: why Italy and why not Japan (the US or Germany)? Here's my answer.

The sense that America’s spending is out of control is visceral. It will be cut. Looking for a job, running a business or Investing in a world of austerity is a lot different from getting along in normal times. I advise everyone to think…