Archives
Greece Holds Out, Wins Even Worse Deal
July 14th, 2015
The hostile takeover is almost complete. On Sunday Greece agreed not just to Germany’s original demands, but to even more: “(Bloomberg) – The conditions that Tsipras swallowed comprised a laundry list of unfinished business from Greece’s two previous bailouts ...
Greece Enters Its Crack-Up Boom
July 9th, 2015
The Austrian School of economics has a concept called a “crack-up boom” in which a critical mass of people conclude that their government is actively trying to devalue its currency. Consumers respond by front-running the government, spending their paychecks ...
What If You Had An Italian Bank Account? Or A Portuguese Bond?
July 3rd, 2015
Though it might yet drag on for weeks, months or even years, Greece’s drama can end in one of only two ways: Continued austerity which consigns its most vulnerable 50% to an endless “capital D” Depression, or some form ...
On Monday, It’s China Versus Greece
June 29th, 2015
Fear and greed are both getting a serious workout lately, but Monday will be even more fun than usual because of two big stories that hit over the weekend. First, Greece decided to put the draconian demands of its ...
Another Week, Another Chinese Gold Mine
June 26th, 2015
Though the true amounts are debatable, it’s generally conceded that China is importing a lot of gold. What’s not included in this calculation — but should be — are the deposits its mining companies are acquiring overseas. This gold-in-the-ground ...
We’re All Greek Now — Some Just Don’t Know It Yet
June 16th, 2015
Let’s see…a heavily-indebted country can’t pay its bills, engages in a long series of failed attempts to manage a partial, controlled default, sees most of its capital flee to safer venues, and then, in a final act of desperation, ...
Is The Age Of Negative Interest Rates Ending Already?
June 12th, 2015
History teaches that long trends end only when everyone is finally convinced that they’ll keep going. Maybe no trend in modern times has been as convincing as interest rates. The yield on long-term Treasury bonds, for instance, has been ...
What Would Happen If Mainstream Investors Discovered Gold?
June 8th, 2015
China, India and Russia are accumulating a lot of gold, but they’re virtually alone. Traditional money managers, for a variety of reasons, view the metal as neither a viable investment (because it doesn’t pay interest) nor a substitute for ...
2007 All Over Again? Mega-Merger Edition
June 2nd, 2015
Intel is buying chip maker Altera. Charter is buying Time Warner Cable. All the big drug makers are buying all the mediums-sized ones. Great news, right? If these huge companies with their top-of-the-line analytical tools and deep insight into ...
No Money, No Growth
May 18th, 2015
Last August, the US Fed stopped creating new currency out of thin air and dumping it into the banking system. Which is another way of saying the US money supply stopped growing. Here’s the adjusted monetary base — a ...
