Reuters – Buffett warns Obama U.S. economy only halfway back President Barack Obama heard a sobering message from Warren Buffett when he asked for the investment guru’s views about the economic recovery, according to an interview Obama gave NBC News on Thursday. “I’ll tell you exactly what Warren Buffett said. He said, ‘We went through… Continue reading Buffett Speaks To Obama
The Economist – Japanese banks and government bonds: That bloated feeling Japan’s banks may soon chafe at their mission to support the bond market JAPAN has been dining out on the story this month of the arrest of its hot-dog-eating champ, Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi, in Coney Island, New York, for his overzealous attempts to… Continue reading Japanese Banks And JGBs
Bloomberg.com – Caroline Baum: Throw the Bums Out as Long as My Bum Stays Put Everywhere you turn, anti-incumbent sentiment is on the rise. You can see it in opinion polls, where six in 10 Americans, the highest ever, say most members of Congress don’t deserve to be re-elected, according to a June 11-13 Gallup… Continue reading Politics
Zero Hedge (blog) – Artist’s Rendering Of Tim Geithner’s Desktop As America slowly digests the empirical evidence that both our judicial (SEC settlement) and legislative (FinReg farce) branches are now dead and buried (we all know how the executive branch is faring), the only thing left is humor. In continuing with our deep throat screen… Continue reading Cartoons
Comment Jim Bianco was on CNBC yesterday discussing the FOMC minutes. To view the interview click on the picture above. To view any of our recent interviews click here. In yesterday’s minutes, the FOMC said: A number of participants expressed the view that, over the next several years, both employment and inflation would likely be… Continue reading FOMC Minutes – Is The Exit Strategy To Do Nothing?
Zero Hedge (blog) – Jim Grant Is Confident QE 2.0 Is Just Around The Corner Jim Grant, one of the most respected voices in the financial industry, joins Zero Hedge and others, who see that the only choice the Federal Reserve has now that the temporary and shallow reprieve from the clutches of the deflationary… Continue reading Two More Federal Reserve Governors That Know Nothing About Monetary Policy
The Financial Times – Dis-membering the euro The most significant aspect of the eurozone crisis is that the risk of the bloc breaking up is no longer perceived to be zero. The possibility that a member might quit is acknowledged by euro supporters and may have helped to sustain the divergence of bond market spreads.… Continue reading Will The Eurozone As We Know It Survive?
The Financial Times – Economy suffers from a shortage of safe assets Ricardo Caballero of MIT offers a theory which investors should consider seriously. He professes that the global economy suffers from a critical shortage of safe assets. It was this shortage that lit the fuse of more proximate causes in the financial crisis. Housing… Continue reading Where Have All The “Safe” Assets Gone?
Euro Intelligence (Blog) – Detailed disclosure is the key to stress-test success By agreeing to publish stress-test results for the EU’s most prominent banks, European leaders have made a bold step that is both indispensable and ridden with execution risks. Even as the announced date of publication, 23 July, is approaching fast, several key aspects… Continue reading Stress Tests
The Financial Times – Lex: Cash is king Fund managers are all cashed up. In the UK cash comprises 9 per cent of portfolios, according to a Reuters poll of the top dozen institutions’ asset allocations, the highest level since Lehmans collapsed in October 2008. Europeans are playing a similarly canny hand. That begs the… Continue reading Cash Is King
The Wall Street Journal – Three Million Imaginary Jobs It may be that the last people in America who believe that the $862 billion economic stimulus of February 2009 created millions of net new jobs are Vice President Joe Biden and the staff economists in the White House. Yesterday, President Obama’s chief economist announced that… Continue reading Saving The Workforce, One Imaginary Job At A Time