Recession Fear and Dollar Loathing in Las Vegas Written By: Eben Esterhuizen 2008-02-05 23:09:18
Judging by today's selling frenzy on Wall Street, it looks like the market has finally started pricing in a worst case scenario for the U.S. economy. And the time has come to ask some important questions.
Is it safe to say that the recession is finally here? If we are in a recession, how long will it last? Will heavy consumer debt, a growing federal budget gap, and rising prices make this recession worse than Americans have experienced over the past two decades? Will the situation evolve into the worst financial crisis since World War Two (legendary investor George Soros seems to think so)?
Remember the Last Time Globalization Collapsed? Written By: Eben Esterhuizen 2008-03-26 21:42:10
"Remember Friday, March, 14 2008: it was the day the dream of global free-market capitalism died," says the Financial Times' Martin Wolf. "For three decades we have moved towards market-driven financial systems. By its decision to rescue Bear Stearns, the Federal Reserve, the institution responsible for monetary policy in the U.S., chief protagonist of free-market capitalism, declared this era over."
The BerkShares Written By: Michelle Haimoff 2007-06-21 17:32:46 I love currency.
I think currency is one of those things, like wristwatches, that will get phased out in time, but for now serve as a reminder that attention to detail is an end in itself. It is with empathy, then, that I read about the town in western Massachusetts that adopted its own currency, "BerkShares," to promote local businesses.
The Inflation Data Conspiracy Written By: Eben Esterhuizen 2008-05-14 00:25:47 Photo:peterandringa, Creative Commons, Flickr
Call me a conspiracy nut if you like, but I'm starting to believe that the U.S. government is actively manipulating inflation data. PIMCO's Bill Gross recently suggested that the U.S. government wants to keep Social Security payments and other government costs pegged to an artificially low index, and he even suggested that this practice may have fueled the housing bubble. "The government can claim there's no inflation but all they're measuring is a reduced standard of living," argues Peter Schiff at Euro Pacific Capital.
