2011

We believe that the market has now entered a major downtrend. It is a mistake to dismiss the slide we've seen to date as mindless and devoid of fundamentals as many strategists maintain. These are not just scary headlines----they are scary…

The yen is a safe haven. That assertion seems so obvious, that why it is the case is rarely explored. It does not seem to be a function, as some suggest, of its trade surplus, but rather its position as a net international investment…

Schuldenkrise: Griechenlands Wirtschaft schrumpft weiter - Konjunktur - Politik - Handelsblatt tags: Greece economy…

The dollar continues to remain firm against most of the majors; global stocks down sharp. Risk appetite took another turn for the worse; dollar bloc and scandis remain most sensitive. Outside the carnage in EM equities, funding strains are…

The ABC Radio National program Rear Vision is a current affairs program that presents “contemporary events and people in their historical context”. I was recently interviewed by Rear Vision for a retrospective on the crisis, entitled “Here…

Households are in far worse shape now than in the 1930s, with a peak debt level that is two and a half times as high as it was in 1930. That’s why the crisis now is manifesting itself in stagnant consumer demand. It doesn’t involve the same…

On Monday, Warren Buffett wrote a widely-discussed New York Times opinion piece, “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich” about taxes in America. I think his subsequent appearance on the Charlie Rose show was really good at explaining his views and…

Forget about ‘pivoting’ to jobs when right now the President is going to be forced to focus on deficits. The House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has already said he will broker no stimulus and the deficit panel will be in full swing before…

This week's Outside the Box is in the tradition of showing the other side of the argument. Normally, anything George Soros says or does politically has my blood pressure up about 20 points. Yet, I posted another piece of his today in Over…

PIMCO, the world’ largest bond fund call this suppression of yields financial repression because it means savers and bond investors get negative real returns. However, John Hempton pointed out that in Japan, where this monetary policy is…