capital investment

The conventional wisdom is that the US is beholden to foreign agents as they hold much of the US government debt.  In this view, if these agents sell their securities, interest rates in America should increase as demand for US public debt…

Right now many economists believe the US economy is poised for recovery.  Even I believe the economy will recover by year’s end. But for the man in the street, things hardly look like a recovery right now. Harried by falling house…

Stock markets are seriously overbought right now.  But, the rally in shares has been bolstered by better than expected economic data and earnings reports.  I first pointed to a rally in shares in March, but I didn’t get fully onboard until…

Many economic prognosticators believe Chinese consumption growth is key to a global economic recovery.  The US consumer, who had been the buyer of first and last resort during the bubble years, is tapped out and indebted.  The new engine of…

I have been taking a bit of a break as my trip to the Ontario’s Lake Country winds down.  It’s a beautiful place.  But, as Marshall Auerback and I were lamenting, it has become the Hamptons of Canada as everyone from Toronto is up…

This entry from Gary Shilling comes via John Mauldin’s site InvestorInsight.com where he highlights commentary from some of the best economic thinkers. Shilling, who correctly predicted problems in residential real estate in the US, is in…

The Department of Commerce released the Personal Income and Outlays data for June 2009.  What the data showed was a very unbalanced month in which personal income and savings dropped but personal consumption expenditures rose.  In…

We’re not really hard wired for making money in the markets. We use a lot of gut instincts, heuristics and plain illogic in making decisions.  The result is sub-optimal investment performance. This is the nothing new as the field of…

This post is going to be a bit wonkish.  I apologize for those of you who are not economics geeks.  Hopefully, you will find it interesting nonetheless. At the urging of my good friend Marshall Auerback, I have been looking into…

This comes via Brown Brothers Harriman. I have highlighted the parts of particular note. Macroeconomic Update: The economy has slowed along with the rest of the world, as China has become much more dependent on trade as it integrates…