The Value Of Money (Plus Bye-Bye, Dubai)
First, this item about Dubai:Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) Dubai World, the government-owned holding company struggling with $59 billion of liabilities, is seeking to delay repayment on all of its debt, even after Abu Dhabi banks provided $5 billion for Duba...
2012: Dollar At The End Of The World
I am a devoted and frequently bemused student of aberrant market behaviour as expressed in the popular media, i.e. "lifestyle" TV programs, films, radio, magazines, etc. I'm always on the lookout for such market signals emanating from unlikely, non-pr...
Calling Archimedes
Within 6 hours deserts receive more energy from the sunthan humankind consumes within a year.________________________________Prompted from the previous post about Dubai, today's post is about a quiet revolution planned for the deserts of North Africa. ...
Dubai’s Shut Up Finance
We have heard of project finance, debt finance, LBO finance, islamic finance... we have even heard talk of Green Finance (self serving smile). But until yesterday, we never had the pleasure of Shut Up Finance. As with indoor skiing when outside te...
Credit Crisis vs. Permagrowth Crisis
Yeah, OK, the Credit Crisis may have abated - at least according to the Sage of Omaha (a.k.a. Warren Buffett, see story here). For example, the spread between BAA and AAA corporate bond interest rates has subsided to a historically reasonable level ...
About CIT And Sardines
CIT, one the world's largest finance companies specializing in lending to medium-sized companies and equipment leasing, just filed for bankruptcy. It is highly unlikely that American taxpayers are going to recoup any of the $2.33 billion of bailout m...
A More “Personal” Look At Debt
It is common enough to look at debt as a percentage of GDP, DPI, etc. but that's so... impersonal. So here are a couple of (very scary) charts that look at things from a dollars per person perspective (click on charts to enlarge). Debt per person and ...
Boundary Conditions
A reader asked if I think the yield curve will flatten. The answer is yes, I do.A steeply positive yield curve - as it is now - is the bond market's way of discounting a sharp rebound in the economy; I believe this optimism is unfounded and will soo...
Lies And Headli(n)es
Today's release of durable goods orders numbers for September was greeted by the following headline over at Bloomberg: US Durable Goods Orders Rise Fourth Time in Six Months in Recovery Sign.OK, so what are the numbers? Orders increased by a seasonall...
The Fisher-Bernanke Snake Oil
Everyone agrees we are going through a Great Recession brought about by excessive debt; or, to be more precise, the deflation of excessive debt. The proximate cause of the crisis is, therefore, similar to that of the Great Depression during which Yal...
Bills And Swaps Indicate Great Optimism
The US Treasury auctioned three and six month bills yesterday. Interest rates came in at 0.08% and 0.17% respectively (these are annual rates) and demand was very strong; the bid/cover ratio was around 4x. Apart from this and the previous two aucti...
It’s The Banks (Plus Kissinger On The Dollar And China)
If you are wondering what lead the recovery of broad stockmarket indexes, look no further than the chart below (click to enlarge). A comparison of relative performance between S&P 500 (yellow line) and the KBW bank share index (black line), it show...
