Bill Bonner at The Daily Reckoning reports that “Even if America taxed 100% of all household wealth, it would not be enough to put its balance sheet in the black”, which I note seems exactly right to me, and I am able to corroborate Mr. Bonner’s analysis because it seems to me that I seem [...]

Popular myth and, allegedly, the laws of aerodynamics have it that the bumblebee should not be able to take flight. Yet still, our good bumblebee refuses to be pulled down by such details and year after year it takes flight as if nothing has happened. This allegory applies, with some imagination, to Japans economy too. [...]

I was laid out on the couch, which I remember distinctly because my wife was yelling, “If you’re going lay down on the couch instead of doing something around the house to help me out, at least take your damned shoes off!” and I was using the remote to idly flip through the channels on [...]

Well, it might appear that my smug headline in the post below may not have been so appropriate after all. At least I find the news from the FT today that Eurozone members, headed by France and Germany, are considering to set up an internal IMF type fund very significant.
(from the FT)
Germany and France are [...]

I am a guy who thinks that such huge explosions in money supplies around the world and the explosions in government deficit-spending around the world will lead to catastrophic explosions in inflation in prices, probably around the world.
I am also a guy who thinks that inflation in prices is the Thing Most Feared (TMF) in [...]

In a week when the Greek leadership declares it a historic moment for the European Union that the ailing country has agreed to swallow an additional austerity plan which, so far, seems to have calmed markets it would almost be too much to continue picking on the Eurozone. Yet pick I am going to nonetheless [...]

I knew that something was amiss when I woke up and the house was quiet. Having the benefit of seeing a lot of movies where things were “too quiet”, I instantly knew that things being “too quiet!” meant that Indians were going to be attacking, or the Japanese attacking, or the Germans attacking, sometimes government [...]

The proverbial boogeyman, the phrase “end of the world as we know it”, is not particularly significant to me because it is, literally, always true, because any progress at all, anywhere, means that tomorrow will never be like today, and so “the end of the world as we know it” can be extended to mean [...]

The Eurozone’s current problems are not mainly a result a of prolifigate and reckless spending of government resources in the Eurozone periphery [1]. Even nobel laureate Paul Krugman has begun to forcefully push this argument arguing that the real source of the malaise is the steady build up internal Eurozone imbalances. I only conditionally agree. [...]

Earlier this day, I came across Moody’s Misery Index (link) which estimated the size of macroeconomic difficulties in European countries. In particular, European countries within and outside the Eurozone are likely to face stagnant GDP growth rates, high unemployment rates, deflationary pressures and a depressing fiscal outlook.
Moody’s Sovereign Misery Index
Source: FT Alphaville (link)
The most [...]