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William White, the former chief economist at the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) gave an important speech at George Soros' Inaugural Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET) conference in Cambridge.  While everyone is casting…

Why is the US savings rate continuing to fall? Three possibilities: increasing asset prices, debt-related stress, a surge in strategic defaults.

For the last few months I have been casting around looking for bullish data points as counterfactuals to my more bearish long-term outlook. I have found some, but not enough. If you recall, early this year, I stated that we are in…

Late last year, I anticipated that the global slowdown would bring China’s GDP growth down to 2%, a level that would make most nations envious but which would have been catastrophic for China.  In the end, robust government stimulus…

You can see this coming.  It is looming and has been for some  time.  Remember that California is the biggest loser in the housing crash and it has one of the highest unemployment rates in the United States.  I have been warning that this…

This account bears remembering because we can see the 1929-1933 descent as a two-part episode, with the second part starting here. It should be noted that there were a lot of positive economic signs before the Creditanstalt ruined this.…

In an interview with Swiss daily Tagesanzeiger, a well-known economist has warned that Switzerland risks bankruptcy, if the recent market turmoil centering on Eastern Europe is not contained quickly. At issue are loans made in Swiss Francs…

Just a few hours ago, I posted an article about European toxic asset exposure based on a Telegraph article.  The crux of the Telegraph piece was that European banks have a shed load of bad debt on their books.  A secret European Commission…

As the New Year unfolds, it is time for predictions. I have done my part, giving a full account of where I see things headed in 2009 in my post "Top ten predictions for the 2009 global economy" and where I want to see them headed in 2009 in…

In my most recent post, I gave a fairly comprehensive retrospective of the year that was. Near the end of that post, I listed a number of posts I wrote in Octobr and November which point to how I see 2009 shaping up. Let me give you a…