…Calmly observing the changing world

Back, in April, Treasury Secretary Geithner proclaimed that the debt of the United States would never be downgraded and that there was “no risk” of such an event.  As just about everyone knows by now, S&P downgraded the US on Friday.  Now that it’s occurred, Geithner is claiming that it doesn’t matter anyway. But it’s [...]

In a world full of constant and seemingly endless information, we may take comfort in reminding ourselves that we don’t have to follow it all.  Not just because most of it isn’t important, but also because a lot of it isn’t true anyway. Most recently, the media has droned on about how the US will [...]

Stephen Stanley had an interesting thought.  What makes this surprising is that he is an economist, so, no matter interesting it might seem, we can be pretty sure that it doesn’t make as much sense. He wonders, that since Keynesian theories have so completely failed in the last few years, that maybe some good will [...]

On the whole, May was a pretty brutal month.  The stock market is aimless, but the real action has been elsewhere: protests, extreme weather, currency worries, sovereign debt.  There was a lighter side to the news this month, but you really had to dig deep: Exploding Chinese Watermelons Sure, you’ve heard about lead paint on [...]

The citizens of the UK are struggling.  Their internal political system has been completely unable to cope with two seemingly opposite forces which erode what is left of the ancient empire. One is the fight to remain free from the ever expanding and intrusive EU bureacracy that eminates from Brussels. Her majesty’s subjects were never [...]

The financial world is split between the people who “get it” and those who “don’t get it.”  Which side is which depends on whom you ask, but one thing is sure, no one has any respect for the rating agencies. And there has been plenty of investor ridicule of the agencies lately, as S&P shown [...]

Machiavelli proposed that you could determine how well a population was governed by the changes in its population over time: the more the better.  A very sober thought, then, for the inhabitants of Detroit that the census found 238,270 fewer of them than in 2000. It almost goes without saying that those governing the city [...]

I could write more than one treatise on what is and isn’t money – and certainly many people smarter than I have tried to do this in the past.  There is a lot to learn from such an exercise, but it largely remains just that – an exercise – and not something that impacts daily [...]

One of the supposed roles Saudi Arabia uniquely holds, is that in time of crisis, it obligingly increases the production of oil.  It has recently promised to do just that.  In a perfect world, turmoil in the Middle East that causes a supply disruption in oil would be offset by increased Saudi production. Unfortunately, reality [...]

The lore of bull markets dictates that before the end of the bull market in gold there will be a wild mania, where the price soars to astounding heights in bubble of epic proportions.  Of course, it’s difficult to tell when you’re in the bubble – which is a bit fun since ignorant experts from [...]