The Telegraph (UK) – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Europe stumbles blindly towards its 1931 moment It is the European Central Bank that should be printing money on a mass scale to purchase government debt, not the US Federal Reserve. Unless the ECB takes fast and dramatic action, it risks destroying the currency it is paid to manage,… Continue reading EuroZone Stress Rising
The New York Times – James Grant: In Gold We Trust BY disclosing a plan to conjure $600 billion to support the sagging economy, the Federal Reserve affirmed the interesting fact that dollars can be conjured. In the digital age, you don’t even need a printing press. This was on Nov. 3. A general uproar… Continue reading More Love For A Gold Standard
ABC News – Greenspan: High Deficits Could Spark Bond Crisis The United States must move to rein in its massive budget deficits or it faces the risk of a bond market crisis, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Sunday. “We’ve got to resolve this issue before it gets forced upon us,” Greenspan said… Continue reading Greenspan Worries About Deficits
Bloomberg.com – Harbinger Investigated by SEC, U.S. Attorney Over Falcone Loan Harbinger Capital Partners is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s office over a $113 million loan to founder Philip Falcone and possible preferential treatment of some investors, according to two people with knowledge of the probe. Falcone, 48,… Continue reading Will Harbinger Be A Harbinger?
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Reuters – Fed Would Cut Buying If Output Gap Shrinks: Medley The Federal Reserve would curtail its $600 billion asset purchase program if it sees the output gap shrinking more quickly than expected, an influential think tank said in a report on Thursday. “The committee agreed that if conditions improved and risks diminished sufficiently so… Continue reading Will The Federal Reserve End QE2?
The Wall Street Journal – Inflation Expectations Not as Hyper as They Appear Fed chief Ben Bernanke sees little sign of inflation on the horizon. But U.S. households don’t feel the same way. Take the preliminary November consumer-sentiment index, produced by Reuters and the University of Michigan, due out Friday. It likely will show that… Continue reading Inflation Expectations
The Economist – Commodity traders: Know your onions Commodity speculators do more good than harm Institutional investors and hedge-fund bosses do not deserve the attention they are getting. They are far duller folk than their caricatures and the offences they are accused of crumble on closer examination. There is almost no evidence to connect speculators… Continue reading The “Evil Speculators” Are Back!
The Economist – Economic indicators from the web: Dotconomy Internet firms are becoming a valuable source of economic insights Because web businesses gather data rapidly, their indicators can sometimes identify trends before official statistics. Take the case of Monster Worldwide, an online job service that publishes an index tracking jobs posted on its own and… Continue reading Digital Economic Indicators
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Ireland Default Predicted by Majority in Global Investor Poll A majority of global investors predict Ireland will default on its sovereign debt, showing that weeks of efforts by the government of the onetime “Celtic Tiger” haven’t allayed concerns about its creditworthiness. As the Irish government puts the… Continue reading Ireland
CNBC – Have Cash, Wait for Stocks to Fall: Jeremy Grantham Investors should be overweight in cash, which gives them security as well as the option to take advantage of other investments if prices fall, fund manager Jeremy Grantham told CNBC Thursday. “It [the Federal Reserve] wants us to go out there and buy stocks,… Continue reading Jeremy Grantham
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Economist – Chinese acquisitions: China buys up the world And the world should stay open for business IN THEORY, the ownership of a business in a capitalist economy is irrelevant. In practice, it is often controversial. From Japanese firms’ wave of purchases in America in the 1980s and… Continue reading China