Herbert Mayer Honi soit qui mal y pense: Aug 1939 This is not the first time I’ve written on this topic, but I want to do it again, because rate hikes, when they come, will have a tremendous effect on everybody’s loves and economies, wherever you live. And because I think there’s still far too much complacency out there, far too much ‘conviction’ that higher rates will come only after a comfortable period of time, and even then only gradually.
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W.H. Jackson Rice Creek near Brown’s Landing, Putnam County, FL 1890 Something tells me I make get into trouble with my Czech and Slovak friends – and readers – over this, but I was still struck by the following interview with former Czech prime minister and president Václav Klaus. I know he’s not uncontroversial, hence the anticipated ‘trouble’. What Mr. Klaus says in this interview with the Daily Spectator’s Neil Clark is so clear and correct and to the point
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Marjory Collins Traffic jam on road from the Bethlehem Fairfield shipyard to Baltimore April 1943 It is, let’s say, exceedingly peculiar to begin with that a government – in this case the American one, but that’s just one example -, in name of its people tasks a private institution with regulating not just any sector of its economy, but the richest and most politically powerful sector in the nation. Which also happens to be at least one of the major
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Harris & Ewing Staircase in the Capitol, Albany, New York 1905 So PIMCO was going to fire Bill Gross over the weekend, and he chose to leave on his own accord and work for Janus. So what? Gross is 70 years old and still joins another firm geared towards making money, and nothing else at all. As if making money, and nothing else, is a valid goal in a human life. As if someone who’s done nothing else his entire
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Wyland Stanley Studebaker motor car in repair shop, San Francisco 1919 There are substantial and profound changes developing in the global economy, and in my view we should all pay attention, because everyone will be greatly affected. Some more than others, but still. ‘Metal markets’, be they gold, silver, copper or iron, exhibit distress and uncertainty, prices are falling, or at least seem to be. Partly, that is because of the apparently still ongoing investigation in the Chinese port of
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Christopher Helin Service truck at Dodd warehouse, San Francisco 1919 Increasingly, the way the ‘booming recovery’ is presented to the public is so out there you could be pardoned for thinking someone is getting desperate. Like, really? Let’s start off with US housing. Here’s a few tidbits from a piece on Bloomberg today, and then we’ll compare that with something that’s 180º different, and I strongly suggest you be the judge. It’s not like you’ll be needing me to do
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DPC Herald Square, New York 1903 Emerging markets are about to get hit by a whopper of a double whammy. And if I were you, I wouldn’t be too surprised if it takes on epic proportions. The exposure that emerging markets, countries in the less wealthy parts of the globe, Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, have to the west has grown at a very rapid clip since, let’s say, Lehman. These countries were hit hard by the western crisis,
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Russell Lee Hamburger stand in Harlingen, Texas Feb 1939 On this relatively quiet Sunday, why not delve into a topic that’s as timely as it is controversial topic: the US greenback. I see it moving a lot lately, and I see a lot of opinions being expressed on those moves. But for most of those opinions, I got to say: I’m sorry, but I don’t think so. There’s such a huge amount of entrenched and ingrained ideas in the financial
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Christopher Helin Star auto on steep grade, San Francisco 1922 The quote of the day today must be this one from Belgian EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht in the aftermath of the Scottish rejection of independence: “A Europe driven by self-determination of peoples … is ungovernable … ” I don’t think he understands the implications of what he says, and I’m quite sure he completely misses out on the mastodont sized problem he – quite accurately despite himself- describes.
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DPC Old Charter Street burying ground, Salem, Massachusetts 1906 The Russian Union of Engineers has issued a report on what happened to flight MH17. The report has now been translated. It doesn’t leave open the option that MH17 was downed by a ground-to-air missile, something all other sources have so far labeled the most likely explanation for what happened on July 17. The Russian Union of Engineers instead claims the plane was attacked by a fighter jet, and that, since
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