Archives
How Many Tech Startups Are Empty Shells?
March 30th, 2016
How many startups are empty shells filled with glitzy PR designed to appeal to VC newbies? It’s widely accepted that most tech startups will fail. Perhaps the core business proposition didn’t pan out, or the execution was flawed, or ...
Why Our Financial System Is Like the Titanic
March 15th, 2016
The “unsinkable” global financial system is rushing headlong toward its encounter with the iceberg. Why did the Titanic sink, despite being considered unsinkable? The conventional answer is the design of its watertight compartments was flawed: the watertight bulkheads were ...
Why the Chinese Yuan Will Lose 30% of its Value
February 19th, 2016
The stark truth is nobody wants yuan any more. The U.S. dollar (USD) has gained over 35% against major currencies since 2011. China’s government has pegged its currency, the yuan (renminbi) to the USD for many years. Until mid-2005, ...
Why We Won’t Have a “Lehman Moment” in the 2016 Crash
February 5th, 2016
What the central banks cannot do is create productive places to invest the credit they’ve generated in such excess, or force qualified borrowers to swallow more unproductive debt. One way to lose a war is to focus on preparing ...
The Illusion of Safety: Index Funds Are Not Low-Risk
January 29th, 2016
If the risk-on euphoria of punters borrowing billions of dollars in margin debt doesn’t materialize, stocks could languish for years after falling 50%. The financial service industry’s Prime Directive is to exploit humanity’s core drives of Greed and Fear. ...
Could China’s Housing Bubble Bring Down the Global Economy?
January 21st, 2016
Who’s going to buy the tens of millions of empty flats held as investments? I’ve been writing a lot about China recently because it’s becoming increasingly clear that China’s economy is slowing and the authority’s “fixes” are not turning ...
The China Syndrome: The Coming Global Financial Meltdown
January 12th, 2016
All the phantom wealth piled up in China’s boost phase is now melting down, and the China Syndrome will trigger a meltdown in global phantom assets. The 1979 film The China Syndrome took its name from the darkly humorous ...
The Most Profitable Work Will Be Automated: The Rest Will Be Left to Us
December 23rd, 2015
A new system is self-organizing before our eyes. We just have to stop obstructing its rise and start facilitating its expansion in self-evident ways. What’s abundant and what’s scarce? The question matters because as economist Michael Spence (among others) ...
Why the Fed Has to Raise Rates
December 4th, 2015
No empire has ever prospered or endured by weakening its currency. A great many insightful commentators have made the case for why the Fed shouldn’t raise rates this month–or indeed, any other month. The basic idea is that the ...
Is This How the Next Global Financial Meltdown Will Unfold?
November 23rd, 2015
In effect, a currency crisis is simply the abrupt revaluation of the currency to reflect new realities. I have long maintained that the structural imbalances of debt and risk that triggered the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008-2009 have effectively ...
