TAE Feature

Five Stonking Crashes

FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 2013 11:46 AM

Photo top: Dorothea Lange Broke, Baby Sick February 1937
"Tracy (vicinity), California. U.S. Highway 99. Missouri family of five, seven months from the drought area. Broke, baby sick, car trouble."

Little by little the realization is seeping through that, provided we can agree a recovery cannot be purchased outright, there is no such thing as a recovery anywhere in the western world. Mind you, I said seeping, and I could even have said trickling; it's a slow process. And that is a direct consequence of various vested interests in producing the illusion of recovery and growth which exist in the realms of politics, finance and media.

A few days ago, in the shadows of its revelations concerning Edward Snowden, The Guardian - in its Sunday sister The Observer - ran another piece that warrants scrutiny. The core line in it is this:

Trying to solve a debt problem with more debt has created a bigger bubble, (and it's hard to see what the central banks can do).

(The core term in it of course is "stonking crashes", I love that.) And then Wed [More...]

Compound Interest : Friend Or Foe?

FRIDAY, JUNE 07, 2013 3:45 PM

Amid all the superficial up and down rumblings of stocks and bonds, and hyped up analysis thereof, none of which makes you any wiser (hey, I told you Abenomics can't work..), it's a good idea to look at some of the more profound workings of the fi [More...]

Japan : It's Not A Bet If You Can't Win

MONDAY, MAY 27, 2013 4:15 PM

The reactions to the $314 billion, 7.3% plunge in the Nikkei last week were, let's say, for the best part amusing. The army of experts and analysts stood at the ready to name the external factors that made it happen (by the way, that army seems to [More...]

Widely Visible Symbols Of Human Folly

SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2013 11:59 AM

Why do we do it? Sure, we discount the future, and consensus is that's genetic, but it's not just our own future we discount. In fact it's not even the one we discount most: that would be our children's future. We don't just take what we need, [More...]

The Untouchables of the 21st Century

MONDAY, MAY 06, 2013 7:55 PM

Throughout history and throughout the world, there have been classes of untouchables. Best known perhaps (other than Elliott Ness and Wall Street bankers) are the caste that goes by the name in South Asia, a.k.a. the Dalits, but there are/were als [More...]

Unburnable Carbon Bubbles

MONDAY, APRIL 29, 2013 2:32 PM

A report came out in Britain 10 days ago that deserves more attention than it got. If only because it uses the great term "unburnable carbon", great even before it's defined. It makes me ponder the popular and somewhat crazy claims about shale and [More...]

Nicole Foss In Australia: It's No Use Trying To Build A Better Dinosaur

TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 2013 1:40 PM

The Nicole Foss 2013 tour of Australia is well underway, and since I'm not there, it's a bit hard for me to write about it. But we do keep in touch on a daily basis of course, so I know things are going well, with lots of good people, good ideas a [More...]