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25 posts tagged with "Japan"
What
happens when the Fed is finished with QE2? I have been letting that filter into
my thinking lately as I look at the economic landscape and the data we have
seen the past few weeks. Correlation is not causation, as I often say, but all
we can do is look back at what happened last...
This week’s letter is a
result of two lengthy conversations I had today, which have me in a reflective
mode. Plus, I finished the last, final edits of my book, all of which is
causing me to mull over the unsustainability of the US fiscal situation. There
is a true Endgame here, and it may happen...
This
week you will get a kind of preview as this week's letter. I am desperately
trying to finish the first draft of my book and am one chapter away from having
that draft. I have promised my editor (Debra Englander) that she would see a
rough draft next week, and the final version will be...
From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
--Old Scottish Prayer
Where the Wild Things Are
is a beloved children's book and now a beautiful movie. But in the investment world there are really scary wild things lurking...
The present contains all possible futures. But not all futures are good ones. Some can be quite cruel. The one we actually get is dictated by the choices we make. For the last few months I have been addressing the choices in front of us, economically speaking. Today I am going to summarize them,...
I first wrote about the Muddle Through Economy in 2002, and the term has more or less become a theme we have returned to from time to time. In 2007 I wrote that we would indeed get back to a Muddle Through Economy after the end of the coming recession. If you Google the term, at least for the first...
There is no doubt that the US is in financial trouble. Those talking of a strong recovery are just not dealing with reality. But the US is in better shape than a lot of countries. This week, we begin by looking at Japan. I have written for years about how large their debt-to-GDP ratio is, yet they...
This week we look at the Land of the Rising Sun. Japan is going through major upheavals, and they will have consequences all over the world. And what are those wild and crazy Swiss central bankers up to? It's time for another round of competitive devaluation. And of course I have to look at the...
It is not just the US that is in recession. The world is slowing down, and rapidly. This week we quickly survey the rest of the world, and then come back to the US. We follow up with the implications for corporate earnings worldwide, and specifically address my speculations about earnings forecasts...
This week I write from Grand Lake Stream in Maine. It has been a long time since I have taken a week off from writing, but I think this is the week to do it. But that means, gentle reader, that you get an upgrade in quality, as my friends (thanks, Louis!) at GaveKal have graciously permitted me...
Thursday saw a powerful response by the markets in stocks, bonds, commodities, and currencies to the communique from the Fed after its recent two-day meetings. Clearly, some were interpreting the communique to mean that the Fed had finally come to an end of its interest-rate-hiking ways. The...
Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. This week we look at a more transparent Fed, Japanese monetary policy, the powerhouse rise of gold, and a rather important op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal
, with a theme of seeing how they all impact the dollar. There is more than a...
This week we finish with our series on the US trade deficit. When will we see a real problem? What are the likely results from a balancing of global trade? Where are the investment opportunities, and where are the pitfalls? It should make for an interesting conclusion and hopefully an...
It seems to be the economic silly season. This week we will explore some of the more absurd ideas to make their way to my reading material this week. I call these to your attention not to make fun of them (well, maybe a little), but because they offer an excellent opportunity for enlightenment. We...
This week, it is hard to sit down and think about anything other than Iraq, especially given the circumstances in which our troops and those of our allies and the citizens of Iraq find themselves. Our prayers are for all those and their families involved. Last week, I wrote that it was likely that...
This week we are in for a very special edition of the Millennium Wave Online. I have persuaded my good friend Bill Bonner of Daily Reckoning fame to give us a special preview of his new book "The Soft Depression of the 21st Century: How to Survive the Crisis of Degenerate, Mass Capitalism,"...
Today we examine several fundamental and criticaly questions, to see if they give us come clues as to the direction of the economy and the stock markets:
"Why do we have no inflation since the Fed has been growing the money supply at very high levels for a very long time?"; the ever popular, "Is...
Reader response to my prediction that we are in the Muddle Through Economy has been interesting. While most readers seem to agree, a few think I am being too pessimistic and we are poised for a boom and many of you think we are headed for a far worse economic scenario.
Last week's 2002 Forecast laid out the clear cut case that deflation would be the dominant economic force in the first part of 2002. I took pains not to use any recent data, trying to make the case on long-term economic patterns. I have always felt it is dangerous to use weekly data to make...
Let's look at the huge amount of data that we had this week. (Thanks to Wayne Anderson in my office who gathered a few hundred pages of articles for me to read while I was out.)
I had dinner with fellow analyst Greg Weldon this last Sunday in New Jersey. Watching the scores of wild swans and...
