Fixed
“Don’t fight the Fed – bet on it.” - Lee Quaintance and Paul Brodsky of QB Asset Management. In December last year, the poet Alice Oswald withdrew from the TS Eliot poetry prize on the grounds that the prize was...
The Great Repression
“No government has ever commanded the resources at the disposal of our ungodly Leviathan, which consumes about 25% of the product of the world’s richest country. It is driven by a voracious alliance of government’s own employees, and those who...
Beware false idols
“Playing with expectations works temporarily. The risk-on trade is in a mini bubble, as today’s buyers want to be ahead of the slower ones. The buying trend is sustainable only if the global economy strengthens, which is unlikely. The stocks...
Stop the (printing) press
“FRED GOODWIN. Have the last laugh by donating a couple of million to the Tory party and receiving a life peerage.” - From the Twitter feed of TWOP TWIPS. Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the...
R.I.P. Maestro
“Crony capitalism abounds when government leaders, usually in exchange for political support, routinely bestow favours on private sector individuals or businesses. That is not capitalism. It is called corruption.” - Alan Greenspan, writing for some reason in last week’s Financial...
Living off immoral earnings
“The reality.. is that banks.. support a thick layer of second tier executives, as well as legions of pen-pushing, meeting-loving, middle- and back-office workers who are paid multiples of their worth and contribution, especially compared with other industries.” - Financial...
A revolutionary road
“Some investors aren’t confident with what gold is backed by, as compared to something like the US dollar. Investors are comfortable that the US dollar is backed by the US government.” - CTV national news field reporter Bridget Brown. This...
A beef quiz, and revisited Koo
“Like a Hitchcock film. You did not need to see the blood and gore and violence – the hint of it and the menace that pervaded the office was worse.” - Theo Zemek cheerily describes the atmosphere at New Star...
A Christmas Miscellany
“I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.” - Shirley Temple. I saw three tips I saw three tips all failing, in...
So long, and thanks for all the stress
“Helmut Schlesinger, the Bundesbank president in 1992, was asked why he disliked the precursor of the Euro, which was called the Ecu. He replied, “I have nothing against the Ecu apart from its name – I think it should be...
Liars led by junkies
“In my several decades as a financial and economics commentator – covering banking crises dating back to the early 1970s and the Latin American debt catastrophes of the early 1980s – I have never heard a sitting [Bank of England]...
