- Eerie Parallels Between Soviet Planned Economy and American Capitalism – Marshall Auerback
Marshall writes over at the great new blog New Deal 2.0 that he does see some bad parallels between the U.S. and its capitalist system today and the Soviet’s communist planned economy. A very provocative piece.
- Waiting for Latvia to devalue – Alphaville
The Swedes are ready for this trade and the Central Bank has made preparations. It will likely happen.
- Inflationistas, deflationistas and Goldilockeans – FT Alphaville
Want to know which financial pundits are oriented where in the eternal inflation/deflation debate? Well, Tracy Aloway at Alphaville has the answer. She also says feel free to add more names to her list.
- Q&A at The Curious Capitalist Blog – Michael Panzner
This is a good piece in which Panzner let’s us know that he sees the Financial Armageddon scenario as likely, but not the only outcome possible. He also notes that he has been surprised time and again at how quickly this crisis has unfolded.
- Understanding Taleb – Felix Salmon
Here it is more clear that Taleb does not believe hyper-inflation is the likely outcome, but rather that we are going to see ‘volatility’ in macro variables due to the economic policy responses. His Black Swan fund is therefore basically long volatility.
- Geithner tells China its dollar assets are safe
Hat tip Marshall Auerback: “”Chinese assets are very safe,” Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s. His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting scepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.”