financial history

The next time you hear someone say that things are worse than the Great Depression now, do me a favor and smack them upside the head for me, please. This is the kind of nonsense you hear nowadays and we need to dispel these myths right…

Whenever I wade into a new topic like digital photography, gardening or what have you, I visit the local bookstore and get a "For Dummies" book to guide me. I figure that it's the best way to get up-to-speed quickly without…

Is the U.S. in recession or not? Well, the U.S. printed a 3.3% number for growth in the second quarter according to the data released last week. Since then, I have been asking myself why we shouldn't believe the U.S. is in an expansion…

For every business cycle since 1929, when U.S. unemployment data was first calculated, when the unemployment rate has gone up more than 1% in one year's time, this has spelled recession. Moreover, the unemployment rate has never risen 1.0%…

Last week, I showed two charts on returns on the Dow Jones Industrial Average that had two seemingly contradictory messages. In the first chart measuring 10-year returns, one could clearly see that long-term returns have been declining…

At first glance, a flair-up in the Caucasus region seems to have little meaning for Americans. But just as the collapse of the subprime mortgage market ultimately came to symbolize the beginning of the end of an American credit system run…

Five-year returns almost never exceed 100% (denoted by the dotted red line in the chart). There are three notable bubble periods in stocks above 100%: pre-1929, pre-1987 and pre-1999*. This is not one of those periods.

'Buy and hold' is a myth that I hope dies an ugly death just like the Efficient Market Hypothesis. When one looks at the numbers, it is as plain as day that the stock market moves in sweeping trends that take decades to unfold.

At the peak of the global housing bubble in 2006, I came across a post about the Japanese bubble that left a big impression on me.As we collectively attempt to call the bottom of the housing bubble, many are cautiously wading back into…

After the United States started its 'Guns and Butter' exercise under President Johnson and eventually de-linked from gold in 1971, its economy has become ever more leverage- and debt-propelled. Interestingly, the result has been a…