2011

The European Central Bank is now deciding how much liquidity to provide because it has received a quid pro quo from Italy that some analysts knew were necessary before the ECB would provide any liquidity. We will see soon whether this will…

If we have learned anything from the current financial mess, it’s that building wealth is dependent on rational analysis, careful decision making, and risk management. That’s why sticking close to home at a time when our markets are more…

Annual growth on the VocaLink Public Sector Take Home Pay Index stands at 1.3% and in the private sector, growth has fallen to 2.9%.

Do I think this is a big deal? No. This move had been telegraphed for weeks. Moreover, the prospect of a double dip recession and a potential lost decade of debt deflation in the US is infinitely more important. The recent rally in Treasury…

The essence of classical free market economics was to restrict Executive power – in an epoch when war-making power was the major abuse of national interests. Just as the lower house of bicameral legislatures had taken over the power to…

Postmortems of last month’s European Union summit meeting have now turned to why the Greek debt rescue failed to restore investor confidence in the country’s finances. Many reasons are advanced: the failure to communicate clearly; the…

We repeat: the “debt problem” is a currency problem and the currency must and will collapse. The global monetary system exists at the pleasure of the Fed, which legally exists at the pleasure of Congress, which as we have learned only has…

Editor’s note: The US government reported that the unemployment rate fell to 9.1%, with non-farm payrolls at +117,000. That exceeds forecasts. However, the labor participation rate was down to 63.9, the lowest since 1983. People are still…

The point is that this is a rolling crisis where investors have realised that the sovereign debt profiles right across Euroland have problems. And because there is no lender of last resort, the weakest debtors get plucked off one by one…

All eyes on US jobs data today, FOMC meeting next week. Euro zone periphery remains under pressure as ECB said to buy bonds; data softer than expected. Global equity markets are lower as growth risks, sovereign risks persist; EM FX softer…