The going gets tougher
“There are times when the burden of taking other people’s money forces you to be active when you don’t really have conviction. It gives you a sense of pressure and expectation. When it’s your own money you don’t have to...
Die Hard, with a vengeance
“Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells.” - J. Paul Getty. When it comes to dying hard, the cult of equities has few peers. You might have thought that the dotcom bust, the Enron...
What’s the colour of money, Part II
“Don’t Get Caught Up in Optimism.” - Headline from CNBC.com which you couldn’t really make up. “Fund managers reconsider their holdings in gold” is a recent headline from TheWealthNet. It cites a report from Standard & Poor’s Fund Services, whom...
Tales of the expected
“A theorem: In matters of military contingency, the expected, precisely because it is expected, is not to be expected. Rationale: What we expect, we plan and provide for; what we plan and provide for, we thereby deter; what we deter...
Something has to give
“More than half of all workers have experienced a spell of unemployment, taken a cut in pay or hours or been forced to go part-time. The typical unemployed worker has been jobless for nearly six months. Collapsing share and house...
QE2 – economy overboard
“Over the medium term, participants saw both upside and downside risks to inflation.” - Minutes of the US Federal Open Market Committee, once again boldly telling it how it is. Optimism may well play a key role in human evolution...
Money-printing: a warning from history
"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their...
Enduring the ‘Phoney War’
“We believe that overall, the [bank stress] tests will be positive.” - Unnamed banker in London, as reported in the FT. “The stress test idea is a shambles. The whole thing is a complete joke.” - Unnamed analyst in London,...
Without a doubt
“If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and are patient in them, we shall end in certainties.” - Francis Bacon. “A good man always knows his limitations.” - Dirty Harry. If...
Blame Léon Walras
“Most economists, it seems, believe strongly in their own superior intelligence and take themselves far too seriously. In his open letter of 22 July 2001 to Joseph Stiglitz, Kenneth Rogoff identified this problem. “One of my favourite stories from that...
Not inspirational
“The announcement of the rescue package failed to stabilize the situation, perhaps because more people knew how deep the problems went than the government realized.. None of the central bankers had faced an international financial crisis before; they therefore had...
The return of real money
“The UK Debt Management Office (DMO) has been voted the most impressive sovereign funding team and DMO chief Robert Stheeman as most impressive sovereign funding official, said EuroWeek. The top award comes as the DMO sold a record £227.6 billion...
