<< Prev Next>> 12/31/07 - 2007: A Year in Review, Part I
by Kate "Short Fuse" Incontrera "2007 was an eye-opening year for many…finally seeing the truth behind the housing market…the precarious state of the dollar…and the underlying strength of gold and other commodities." 12/28/07 - All Men Are Created Equal
by Bill Bonner "Why is it you can hold a perfectly intelligent conversation with a person about any various number of things, but when the topic is changed to the 'War on Terror', or global warming, an otherwise clever person begins parroting nonsense they heard yesterday on MSNBC?" 12/27/07 - The Siberian Century
by Chris Mayer "At a recent investment conference, the Russian government set out its goal to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure in the next 12 years. Capital & Crisis' Chris Mayer explores what kind of investment opportunity that spells for you." 12/26/07 - Optimism in the Face of Inflation
by The Mogambo Guru "No matter how much "Fed speak" we listen to, we can't help but see that inflation is beginning to swallow us whole. And believe it or not, the Mogambo has done his best Robert Ripley impression, and has discovered something truly amazing given the circumstances - an optimist." 12/24/07 - Battle Royale
by Bill Bonner "The idea is to replace the liquidity that the markets are destroying…and prevent the free market from working. That is, the feds try to artificially increase the supply of cash and credit…so as to avoid correcting mistakes."
- Guest Essay Susan C. Walker: You're a Sly One, Mr. Greenspan 12/21/07 - Marked to Make-Believe
by Bill Bonner "Many of the derivative contracts they sold to others, and sold to themselves, were never 'marked to market.' Instead, they were 'marked to model,' mathematical models with deep, obvious flaws. Worse, many were 'marked to make-believe' in a way similar to sub-prime mortgages themselves."
- Guest Essay Bill Bonner: The "Wow" Factor 12/20/07 - Inflation in Fisticuffs
by Bill Bonner "Inflation reeled, and then delivered a jab - foreclosures rose 68% in November…and then another jab - home construction is at the lowest level in 16 years. As a share of the GDP, residential construction has reverted to the mean…"
- Guest Essay by Dr. Marc Faber: The Fed's War 12/19/07 - A Recession Worth Having
by Bill Bonner "Yes, dear reader…a recession is probably on the way…And it will probably be a real recession this time, not just a phony recession such as we had in 2001. This time the consumer will actually have to cut back on his spending."
- Guest Essay by Dr. Marc Faber: Will the Vicious Credit Virus Affect the Real Economy? 12/18/07 - The China Effect
by Bill Bonner "Gobble, gobble, gobble - the Chinese are eating up the worlds resources, putting huge upward pressure on prices."
- Guest Essay by Doug Casey: An Interview with Ron Paul 12/17/07 - Win-Win Capitalism
by Bill Bonner "Over the last five years a house was not only an investment…(which is to say, an opportunity to participate in modern capitalism at its finest) it was a leveraged speculation."
- Guest Essay by The Mogambo Guru: Fictitious Beneficial Inflation 12/14/07 - To Err is Human
by Bill Bonner "The first half of this decade was like none other. It was almost as if you simply couldn't lose money. No matter how hard you tried, the market simply wouldn't allow it. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and as Bill Bonner points out, the end is just beginning." 12/13/07 - The Light Charge of the Fed Brigade
by Bill Bonner "Well, here come the central bankers - fresh from their caviar and foie gras - ready to ride into battle. But against what? Inflation? Or deflation? Against the unstoppable force…or the immoveable object?"
- Guest Essay by Ed Bugos: So What's Gold Worth? 12/12/07 - The Big Squeeze
by Bill Bonner "Alas, the financial marketplace is a lot less forgiving than it was a couple years ago. Now, marginal homeowners are being squeezed by higher prices and higher mortgage payments."
- Guest Essay by Chris Mayer: Get a Room! 12/11/07 - Market News from the Future
by Bill Bonner "We've always yearned for the ability to read tomorrow's newspapers today. Here in the antipodes, we can finally do it. We picked up the paper this morning - and read Tuesday's news - while it was still Monday (at least in the U.S.A.)."
- Guest Essay by Nathan Lewis: The Other Derivative Problem 12/10/07 - The Age of Zoo Capitalism
by Bill Bonner "What is hurting the banking industry now is subprime lending…But don't worry. We live in an age of Zoo Capitalism…and the keepers are supposed to make sure the animals don't get hurt."
- Guest Essay by The Mogambo Guru: Subprimed to Lose Lots of Money 12/07/07 - Extraordinary Popular Debt
by Bill Bonner "Debt was never meant to extend so far. But a little bit here and there quickly became a lot all over the place. As Bill Bonner explains, debt has taken a strong hold on a great number of people, and sets out to find the culprit. Read on…" 12/06/07 - Don't Feed the Animals
by Bill Bonner "They've come to think that capitalism will make them rich…and that capitalism's custodians will make sure that nothing goes wrong. And whenever they begin to doubt it, Ben Bernanke and his fellow zookeepers throw them some red meat."
- Guest Essay by Christopher Hancock: The Virtue of Being Worthless 12/05/07 - Betting Against Subprime
by Bill Bonner "Hedge funds must be one of the dumbest asset classes ever invented. It is like getting someone to put coins in a slot machine and then splitting your winnings with him… but occasionally, you can get lucky."
- Guest Essay by Gary Danelishen: Austrian Economics vs. Bernanke's Economics 12/04/07 - Rescued from the Jaws of Predatory Financing
by Bill Bonner "Of course, the poor people can't pay what they don't have…so they're being forced to pack up and move out. How's that for a national tragedy? Surely, something can be done!"
- Guest Essay by Byron King: The Transforming World of Energy Systems 12/03/07 - This is Gonna Hurt…
by Bill Bonner "You will recall, dear reader, that we are watching a titanic traffic accident. The unstoppable force of inflation is running smack dab into the immoveable object of falling prices."
- Guest Essay by The Mogambo Guru: Traumatized By Inflationary Gunfire 11/30/07 - 'Collapse' Returns to the Investor Lexicon
by Bill Bonner "Just this past summer we gave a speech in Canada, regretting the 'collapse of collapse' - meaning, that whenever anything in the financial world threatened to collapse, the financial authorities rushed in to prop it up."
- Guest Essay by Bill Bonner: Here Come Da Judge 11/29/07 - Keeping Up With Deflation
by Bill Bonner "The 10-year note already yields less than 4%. Bonds have been falling since June. They are just another of the many signs of deflation - of a draining away of credit, cash - liquidity - from the markets."
- Guest Essay by Greg Guenthner: Make Money Like It's 2002 All Over Again 11/28/07 - Pushing on a String
by Bill Bonner "The financial authorities can offer more money on better terms - but the banks and the borrowers turn up their noses. They're already having trouble paying off the debt they've got; they don't want any more."
- Guest Essay by Greg Guenthner: The Hybrid Car Revolution 11/27/07 - Products of the Internet Revolution
by Bill Bonner "In the last quarter of the last century, people worked harder than ever. What did it get them? Nothing. Nobody realized it, but they had reached an era of declining marginal utility of work."
- Guest Essay by Steffan M.I. Karlsson: The Future of the Commodity Price Boom 11/26/07 - A Back-Eddy in the Markets
by Bill Bonner "A lower dollar is inflationary. On world markets you get less for your money. Meaning, prices rise. Since so much of what goes around the world eventually comes around to the U.S. domestic market, soon consumer prices rise in the United States, too."
- Guest Essay by The Mogambo Guru: Never Enough Gold Jewelry 11/23/07 - Halfway to Somewhere
by Bill Bonner "The fall of stock prices so far has wiped out a couple trillion in implied wealth. The fall of the dollar has wiped out a couple trillion more. Goldman Sachs estimates that the credit crunch will take out $2 trillion in credit."
- Guest Essay by Bill Bonner: Are Prices Rising or Falling? You Bet! 11/22/07 - Thanksgiving
by Bill Bonner "When people think of Thanksgiving, they think of Pilgrims and Indians, sitting down at the same table to give thanks…but in this DR Classique, first run on Thanksgiving Day, 1999, Bill Bonner gives us a lesson in the real history behind the holiday…" 11/21/07 - An Army of Hedgers With Broken Pencils
by Bill Bonner "But wouldn't you know it, just when things were going so well - with mortgage brokers lending money coast to coast like a house o' fire - then along comes this totally unanticipated event, like a meteor striking the earth!"
- Guest Essay by Dr. Marc Faber: An Embarassment of Riches, Part II 11/20/07 - Subprime: The Ultimate Financial Accident
by Bill Bonner "Give them enough time and even economists can put two and two together. Now, more and more of them are predicting a recession. And everyone has his eyes on the holiday sales figures."
- Guest Essay by Dr. Marc Faber: An Embarassment of Riches, Part 1 11/19/07 - Investors Go the Way of the Turkeys
by Bill Bonner "We have a feeling that circumstances have changed in a major way for most investors too. The tide has turned, we keep saying. But with so many currents swirling around, it's hard to know for sure."
- Guest Essay by The Mogambo Guru: More than "Sheets" Hitting the Fan 11/16/07 - Breaking the Buck
by Bill Bonner "Not since The Flood has the planet seen such liquidity. The United States buys things it can't afford with money it doesn't have. It simply prints extra dollars and exports them to its trading partners."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Addicted to Americanos 11/15/07 - Inflation and the Asian Money Tree
by Bill Bonner "Wages in mainland China are said to be going up at nearly 20% per year. In other words, the cheap labor is not as cheap as it once was…now that these wage earners are coming up in the world, they want a little more meat in their soup."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: All About the Euros 11/14/07 - Ignoring the Turning Tide
by Bill Bonner "There is, of course, more under Heaven and more on Earth than is contained in our philosophy - but not much! So, if we think stocks ought to go down…they darned well ought to go down…if not sooner, then later."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Costing More to Get to Grandma's 11/13/07 - The Dangers of Instinctual Investing
by Bill Bonner "Since the turn of the century, our approach has been very simple: buy the dips in gold…sell the rallies in stocks (and dollar-based assets, generally). That still looks like a winning formula."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Spray-Paint Wielding Brooks Brothers 11/12/07 - The Ebbing Financial Flood
by Bill Bonner "Still, our guess is that these big numbers are telling us something. They're telling us that the tide has turned…that there won't be another big bull market in stocks or property any time soon…" 11/11/07 - What's Going On With Gold?
by David Galland "In the beginning, which, for the purpose of this analysis, we would point to as mid-July, when the credit crisis began laying waste to markets around the world, gold closely tracked equities."
- Flotsam and Jetsam by David Galland: Awakening Day 11/09/07 - Question Marks Return for U.S. Investors
by Bill Bonner "It seemed too easy. Too obvious. Markets don't usually work that way. People rarely get what they expect, because what they expect is already reflected in current prices. Instead, markets usually surprise us."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: When Stones Turn to Loose Sand 11/08/07 - A Good Recipe for Bad Finance
by Bill Bonner "As near as we can tell from the news reports, what really happened is that the company's erstwhile very profitable finance arm - GMAC - didn't make as much as it had planned. Then, GM's attempts to cook the books blew up in the kitchen."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: 'Need-to-Have' Trumps 'Nice-to-Have' 11/07/07 - Bedazzling Chumps with Fancy Formulae
by Bill Bonner "It was obvious to even a freshman math student that you can't compute real risk…and that markets have feedback mechanisms than tend to short circuit any kind of broadly followed modeling technique." 11/06/07 - Contractions Only Dollars Apart
by Bill Bonner "We are witness to something that doesn't happen very often - like the eruption of a volcano…or the collapse of a bridge - the first stage of a credit contraction."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: A Bag of Cheap Options 11/05/07 - Pounds of Robust Flavor
by Bill Bonner "How come the pound is so strong? The English are spendthrifts too - just like Americans. They've loaded themselves up with debt - just like their yankee cousins - and now have the lowest disposable (after debt service) income in 10 years."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Appraise Worthy Mobile Homes 11/02/07 - No Market for Bulls
by Bill Bonner "There are only ten basic digits…but just look at them. Since we gave up Roman numerals, our numbers aren't straight. Who can trust the number 5, for example? The squiggly little humbug!"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: The Emergence of Citywide Wi-Fi 11/01/07 - Adding Up the Asset Boom
by Bill Bonner "Your poor editor is going to have to move to a cheaper place…a backward country where people don't expect to earn much money…where property prices are low…and where you can still get a cup of coffee for less than $4."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: The 'I-Word' is Back in the Equation 10/31/07 - All Eyes on the Greenback
by Bill Bonner "We talk about cycles in commodities… When you are on solid land, or reading an economics textbook, you can see them clearly. But what about when you are on bobbing up and down yourself - floating on a sea of paper money?"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Bleak News from the Oil Zone 10/30/07 - The Land of the Cheap
by Bill Bonner "America is probably getting cheaper. And Americans are probably getting poorer. That's how the global accounts get settled. Americans owe a fortune to foreigners. As their paper money is marked down so is the fortune they owe."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Investor Parade Calls for Rain 10/29/07 - Printing Press to the Rescue
by Bill Bonner "Who's got that kind of cash? Maybe the Chinese will lend us some…If not, what will we do? Oh, here's an idea…let's print it! It's hard to see any alternative." 10/26/07 - Care to Tango?
by Bill Bonner "Your editor is fond of tango music…and tango dancing too. As to the former, he doesn't know much about it, but he likes to listen. As to the latter, he took lessons in Paris for several months…then, he gave up…"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: No Big Surprise 10/25/07 - Smashed Nest Eggs
by Bill Bonner "So far, only the marginal buyer…and the marginal lender…and the marginal investor…and the marginal homeowner…have been really hurt. But could problems in the credit markets move beyond the margins and into the mainstream?"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: The Fed in the Limelight of a Pickle 10/24/07 - Turning the Tables of Financial Advice
by Bill Bonner "Americans might have to get used to it. Instead of giving advice to other countries, they may have to take some. There are bound to be plenty of economists in other countries who will want to offer it."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Bush sings, "Hey big spender!" 10/23/07 - Humpty Dumpty Investors
by Bill Bonner "No, we're not laughing at Goldman…we're saluting. Any Humpty Dumpty investor dumb enough to sit on this wall deserves to be pushed. Goldman gave them all a shove - and made money doing it."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Tantalizing Tantalum 10/22/07 - The Broken Rungs of the Housing Ladder
by Bill Bonner "What happens when people say 'forget it' to new purchases? What happens when the bottom rung of the property ladder breaks? When happens to an economy that depends on consumer spending when consumers have no more money to spend?"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Gold: The Still Floating Money 10/20/07 - An All Season Hedge
by Addison Wiggin "The lesson not yet learned has everything to do with the reasons why the gold standard was so important. We have given control of economic forces over to government tinkering." 10/19/07 - Welcome to Captivity
by Bill Bonner "Since we live in Europe…and pay our bills in euros…but earn our money in dollars…every day, your editor loses more than he makes. His dollar assets go down. He's getting tired of it."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Oil Cuts Loose - The Dollar in Freefall 10/18/07 - Mortgages to Attack Your Comfort
by Kate "Short Fuse" Incontrera. "Shares of financial stocks fell across the board after the release of this data. Obviously, the subprime meltdown and credit market woes have had an effect on banks - but what does it mean for the broader market?" 10/17/07 - Cracks in the Foundation
by Bill Bonner "Yesterday, we noticed that credit card debt is soaring. With no more 'equity' to pull out of their houses, they are looking for credit wherever they can find it."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Housing Breaks All the Wrong Records 10/16/07 - A Coast-to-Coast Downswing
by Bill Bonner "'Deficits don't matter,' Dick Cheney allegedly remarked. What was he thinking? Maybe 'deficits don't matter to us politicians.' But they sure matter to people who are trying to balance a family budget."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Protection from Falling Shoes 10/15/07 - Inflation, and the Downfall of the Shopping Mall
by Bill Bonner "In the last 30 years, consumers, business and speculators were able to add debt a lot faster than inflation took it off. But now, debtors are already stretched to their limits…and creditors are getting persnickety."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: The Tip of the Oil-Berg 10/12/07 - Not Just a Speculator's Plaything
by Bill Bonner "It is the dollar in which almost all Americans' hopes and dreams are calibrated. If a house is worth 300,000 dollars…those 300,000 pieces of paper may represent a lifetime's worth of past effort…"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Upside Down Homeowners 1011/07 - The Victims of Economic Advantages
by Bill Bonner "Since the U.S. dollar seemed like the safest bet in the world, the Argentine peso seemed like a good bet too. Suddenly, everybody wanted to lend the Argentines money. Why not? The rate of return was good…"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: A Light at the End of the Tech Tunnel 10/10/07 - Giving Up Something for Nothing
by Bill Bonner "When people go deeper into debt, it feels good - it is as if they were getting something for nothing. But when they have to pay off the debt, it doesn't feel so good. Then, they are giving up something…and getting nothing for it."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: August in October 10/09/07 - The Question to the Golden Answer
by Bill Bonner "Using this printing press - or even without it, in this modern, electronic age - the feds can create all the dollars they want. But unless they know something we don't, they can't create even a single additional ounce of gold."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Minutes Ripped to Shreds 10/08/07 - A Builder's Version of Paradise Lost
by Bill Bonner "How things have changed! Just two years ago, buyers lined up for a chance to pick up lots and houses. People would camp out overnight to be first in line…Buyers always said 'yes' and lenders never said 'no.' It was paradise for builders."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Taking Out the 'L' in BLS 10/05/07 - The Forgotten Art of Making Ends Meet
by Bill Bonner "People are going to have less purchasing power. They'll be poorer. Will they be less happy? Well, we don't know…but we remember when we were poor. We don't remember being any less happy."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Job Time Party Hats 10/04/07 - Bubble du Jour
by Bill Bonner "The dimensions may have been a bit stretched, but the model was the same boom-bust model Florida had followed in the 1920s. And now, the fabric is snapping back to its normal size."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: The Charm City Flippers 10/03/07 - Bobbing Corks in an Economic Ocean
by Bill Bonner "In dollar terms, the Dow has never been higher. Stock market players feel pretty good. The major Wall Street firms are telling clients that the good times are still ahead. Even Alan Greenspan says the credit crunch is easing off."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Falling Dollar - Friend of Foe? 10/02/07 - Like Fed Head Like Son
by Bill Bonner "The results, announced two weeks ago, made it clear that Bernanke is heir to Alan Greenspan, not Paul Volcker. That is, the Bank of Ben Bernanke will not fight inflation…instead, it will battle deflation to the bitter end."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Skeptical of the Sponge-Like Market 10/01/07 - Almost Inescapable Results
by Bill Bonner "It is hard to imagine how consumer spending can hold up. There are only three sources of cash for most consumers: savings, wages, or credit. As to savings, forget about it. And wages are going nowhere. That leaves credit."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: A Report on the Kibosh Effect 09/28/07 - U.S. Gets a 'D' in Flation 101
by Bill Bonner "Stock market investors seem to think they've got a 'Bernanke Put' on their hands - an option that will always protect them from losses; if stocks begin to go down…Bernanke will just cut rates."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: No Way to Shut Up Greenspan 09/27/07 - Moving to Cheaper Pastures
by Bill Bonner "America is a cheap place to live. Especially if you don't live in the major metropolitan areas on the two coasts. According to USA Today, you can buy a four bedroom, 2½ bath, 2,200 square foot house in Killeen, Texas, for only $136,000."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Not-So-Bizarre Housing Developments 09/26/07 - Welcome to the Subprime Nation
by Bill Bonner "This year…Americans will probably buy about $2.5 trillion worth of goods from overseas. They would get a lot more for their money if the dollar were stronger. Specifically, if the dollar were still worth what it was in 2002…"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Invested in Fraud 09/25/07 - Worthless Money Now Worth Less
by Bill Bonner "His real problem is not a lack of credit; it's a lack of spending power. He doesn't have enough income to continue borrowing. High housing costs, high energy costs, high food costs…what's a poor working stiff to do?"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Rate Cut Debate Cut In Half 09/24/07 - New Changes in Nascent China
by Bill Bonner "Whole new industries are waking up to a New China, with a middle class…and millions of rich people too. It is the greatest leap forward ever! China's auto and truck exports alone are set to grow by 46% this year."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Who's Hit Hardest by the Crunch? 09/22/07 - Brokedown Greenback
by Kate "Short Fuse" Incontrera "Wow, the dollar has certainly taken a beating this past week following the Fed's rate cut. It has fallen to a 15-year low in the world dollar index, hitting the weakest level ever against the euro at just under $1.40."
- Flotsam and Jetsam by Puru Saxena: Time to Shine 09/21/07 - The Mystified Economic Explorer
by Bill Bonner "An economic explorer…arriving, like Columbus, on the shores of our New World Financial Order…would be amazed, puzzled, impressed…and completely lost. He would see before him…things he never before imagined or thought possible."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Hong Kong Happy Hour 09/20/07 - An Economic 'Ground Rush'
by Bill Bonner "A 15% loss would be the equivalent of a $3 trillion loss in household wealth. That would be a whole lot of 'flation' taken out of the system…and a hard-landing for the millions of people who've been floating in air for the last 20 years."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Hoping History Repeats Itself 09/19/07 - Drinks are on the Fed
by Bill Bonner "The Bank of Ben Bernanke has announced that it is not the Bank of Paul Volcker; it is still the Bank of Alan Greenspan…of the two forms of 'flation' we talked about yesterday, it prefers the form preceded by 'in' rather than 'de.'"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: The Mercedes Vegetable Oil Wagon 09/18/07 - Greenspanning the Breadth of Responsibility
by Bill Bonner "Alan Greenspan came out with his own book on Monday - The Age of Turbulence. Not a very good title, in our opinion. Still, it is sure to knock our own tome off the shelves. Everyone wants to know what the Maestro was really thinking."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Crude Climbs on Energy's Shoulders 09/17/07 - Slippery Oil for Solid Gold
by Bill Bonner "For the last 30 years, the baby boomers have been up-scaling their lives. If our friend is right, the next years will be spent down-scaling….getting rid of things…simplifying…and focusing on things not directly related to money."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Banks Say Goodbye to Good News Signs 09/14/07 - Just Like Japanese Bailout Buckets
by Bill Bonner "Today comes word that the feds are bailing out the big banks as fast as their buckets allow. It is the biggest bailout in five years, say the reports…with big banks averaging about $2.7 billion per day in loans from the Fed."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Bubbles Back in Action 09/13/07 - The Effects of the Summer Market Shock
by Bill Bonner "Pity the poor American householder. Just a few months ago he had people lining up to lend him money. Now they're on the phone wanting it back! He had gotten used to refinancing. But now refinancing is tough…and more expensive."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Texas Coast Caught Off Guard 09/12/07 - Shakespeare Predicts the Housing Bubble
by Bill Bonner "And who can blame the moneylenders? They didn't make any money unless they lent. And borrowers? Who doesn't want to get in line when someone is handing out money? And now both lenders and borrowers are in trouble."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: No Break for the Greenback 09/11/07 - The U.S. Dollar Slasher Film
by Bill Bonner "It is funny how these attitudes creep up on you. They come in the night, when you don't see them. You wake up in the morning and they have taken over your body. You find yourself wanting to slash costs…slash capital spending…"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: That's Ethanol She Wrote 09/10/07 - Partying Past the Subprime Hangover
by Bill Bonner "'The hangover may be here,' says the Wall Street Journal. Maybe…but word has yet to work its way down from Wall Street to the trailer parks… Despite all these things to worry about, Americans don't seem to be worried at all."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Dwarfing Vegas 09/07/07 - The Top to Bottom Trade of the Decade
by Bill Bonner "Here at The Daily Reckoning, we do not really care for the hard work of investing…So, we try to take the sweat out of investing, by reducing it to one investment decision, one time, every 10 years. We call it the 'Trade of the Decade.'"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Breaking All the Wrong Records 09/06/07 - High Margin of Error
by Bill Bonner "Without once again examining the unreliable and perverse nature of these increased earnings, we merely note that higher margins may be a good reason to pay more for a single company, but not for an entire market."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: A Whiter Shade of Beige 09/05/07 - Paging Doctor Liquidity
by Bill Bonner "The basic problem is that the financial world is not really suffering from a syndrome that modern financial medicine can cure. If the ailment were merely a temporary lack of liquidity, central bankers could clear it up tomorrow."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: What's Next? 09/04/07 - Falling on the Dollar-Based Slip and Slide
by Bill Bonner "You could buy a euro, soon after it first came out, for just 88 cents. Now, it will cost you $1.36. A gallon of gas…a bushel of wheat…a year at Yale…everything is rising against the dollar. How long will it continue?"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Hijacked on the Information Superhighway 09/03/07 - Untrainable Market Discipline
by Bill Bonner "The perverse work of the financial markets is to set up investors so they lose as much money as possible. That requires confidence." 09/01/07 - Do-Gooding Doo-Doo
by Lila Rajiva [with Bill Bonner] "Whoever has the muscle can get the rules he wants. So when we find that one of the major players in the global trade business is also in charge of the global aid business, we tend to look pop-eyed."
- Flotsam and Jetsam by Lila Rajiva [with Bill Bonner]: Do-Gooding Doo-Doo (Cont'd) 08/31/07 - Developmentally Disabled
by Lila Rajiva [with Bill Bonner] "Naturally, like all public spectacles, globalization is wrapped up in a huge amount of cant. For instance, if you are a poor country, you are supposed to take to the thing as eagerly as a diabetic to insulin."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Flipping Out 08/30/07 - Better Odds than investors Get
by Bill Bonner "The companies say that the zero-percent financing deals will allow patients to pay off their procedure with no interest rates - that is, until they miss a payment, or take too long to pay it off…then you are in it up to your ears."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Dental Surgery: $6,000. Credit Card Companies Cashing in on Your Health: Priceless 08/29/07 - The Rich Man's Marxism
by Bill Bonner "The present economic system is not capitalism…it's a kind of Marxism for rich people…in which the elite make the profits while the losses are redistributed, shared throughout the entire population like Mao jackets and influenza."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: No Free Lunch 08/28/07 - Tales of the American War Machine
by Bill Bonner "As to peace, who wants it? Like so many other things, the desire for peace comes in cycles. After a war, people crave it more than anything else. Before a war, peace is often the last thing they want."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Rose Colored Glasses are Slipping 08/27/07 - Lifestyles of the Rich on Welfare
by Bill Bonner "The logic of the safety net - whether used to catch a poor man or a rich one - is that whatever mess you've gotten yourself into, someone else pays for it. You forget to save money…someone else provides emergency assistance."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Neighborhood Negligence 08/25/07 - Two Kinds of World Improvers
by Bill Bonner "It was on a Friday evening that we went to see the new German film, Downfall. It was everything that Alexander the Great was not. While Alexander was made to look absurd and laughable, AdolfHitler looked very real-and pathetic."
- Flotsam and Jetsam by Bill Bonner: Two Kinds of World Improvers (Cont'd) 08/24/07 - How Strong is Central Bank Epoxy?
by Bill Bonner "While others desire a speedy recovery on Wall Street, we're rather hoping for a long, dreadful illness…punctuated by periodic reports that the patient has died."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Scapegoating Greenspan 08/23/07 - Blinded by the Divine Light of Capitalism
by Bill Bonner "Our guess is that they are not thinking at all…but reacting to such a long, long run of good news; they can no longer imagine that anything bad could ever happen. That's how this new Theology of Capitalism works."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: The Fed's Vicious Cycle 08/22/07 - Living in an Investor's Paradise
by Bill Bonner "An investor's Valhalla…a speculator's Elysium…a debtor's Eden…right here on planet earth. Gone is the nasty business cycle. Banished are bear markets. Forbidden are credit crunches, bank failures and rising unemployment."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Stormy Weather 08/21/07 - Bailing Out the American Debt Business
by Bill Bonner "There was a time when the business of America was business… Now the business of America is debt. Americans buy things they don't need with money they don't have. Financing debt… is our most important industry."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Oh, We've Got Trouble… 08/20/07 - The Currency Cavalry Rides Again
by Bill Bonner "On Friday, the Bernanke Fed looked a lot like the old Greenspan Fed…riding out to rescue speculators like the cavalry to the aid of desperate pioneers. The trumpet sounded…the rifles fired…and the savages were beaten back."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Bernanke Still Working on Street Cred 08/18/07 - Bipolar Markets
by Kate "Short Fuse" Incontrera "Although the stocks regained some of their losses from earlier in the week after the rate cut, most experts believe that this volatility will be around for months - or possibly until the end of the year."
- Flotsam and Jetsam by Bill Bonner: The Art of Homemade Booze 08/17/07 - Market Moves from Humbug to Farce
by Bill Bonner "Every market is a public spectacle. And every public spectacle follows a certain pattern. It begins with lies and humbug…then, it progresses into farce…"
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Fedhead Eats Crow with a Slice of Humble Pie 08/16/07 - U.S. Dollar on a Foreign Currency Seesaw
by Bill Bonner "People have fewer euro-denominated debts than dollar-denominated debts, so the dollar rises against the euro. On the other hand, speculators in the carry trade have huge yen debts."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: What Do You Consider a 'Calamity'? 08/15/07 - Bear Market Reinvents the Question Mark
by Bill Bonner "Investors, speculators and householders need dollars to pay their bills. Dollars are what people owe. So dollars is what they must have. When dollars are not so readily forthcoming, they go up in price."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: IOU Nothing 08/14/07 - Addicted to Debt
by Bill Bonner "Endrogado means, in this context, hooked on debt. It describes the poor homeowners of West Camille Street…and much of the rest of the nation…from the most modest family, to the U.S. federal government itself."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Who is John Galt? 08/13/07 - Superbanks to the Rescue
by Bill Bonner "What a joy it is to watch central bankers at work! What a spectacle! They are charged with keeping this great modern, capitalist economy going. In practice, that means keeping the bubble in speculative finance from deflating too fast."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave 08/10/07 - True Believers in the Theology of Capitalism
by Bill Bonner "In a truly capitalist world, of course, there are no protections. People get neither what they want nor what they expect. Instead, they get what they've got coming."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: America's Infrastructure Report Card 08/09/07 - The Jekyll and Hyde Global Economy
by Bill Bonner "The symmetry of the system is simple: the East makes; the West takes. The East saves; the West spends. The East lends; the West borrows. The boom in the East is real; in the West it is a fraud."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Bush Weighs in on the Markets 08/08/07 - Credit Where Credit is Due
by Bill Bonner "Except for a couple brief setbacks, prices and confidence have been rising since 1982. It seems to us that this bubble has gotten big enough. Of course…that is not for us to say. Anything could happen."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: China Puts Their Bargaining Chip on the Table 08/07/07 - Kindling For the Real Estate Inferno
by Bill Bonner "And don't worry about the U.S. housing crisis. David Richards, in Barron's, tells us that compared to the raging elephant of global economic boom, the American housing industry is nothing more than a bothersome gnat."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: The Fed Holds Steady 08/06/07 - A Golden Opportunity to Exit a Recession
by Bill Bonner "Owning gold is like going to a World Series game and hoping for rain. You are on the sidelines…out of it…a nullifier…a hopelessly old-fashioned fuddy-duddy."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Pillaging Trumps Building 08/04/07 - Lenders Learning to 'Just Say No'
by Kate "Short Fuse" Incontrera "What?! Absolutely unheard of. You mean if I want to buy a house - I need to actually use my own money? I thought they were just giving them away!"
- Flotsam and Jetsam by Susan C. Walker: Subprime Katrina 08/03/07 - Debt Becomes Her
by Bill Bonner "While the foreigners have gotten richer and more competitive…America's middle and lower-middle classes have merely gone deeper into debt…and added to their monthly expenses."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: The World's New Engine of Growth 08/02/07 - Strong ARMing the Market
by Bill Bonner "'The worst is still ahead,' says the NYT piece. ARMs really caught on in the spring of '05. The peak in adjustments will hit in October of this year - with about $50 billion in mortgages up for reset."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Redneck Wisdom 08/01/07 - Rotten Apples: $900 Million a Bushel
by Bill Bonner "CDO investors are having a rough time of it because the people who are supposed to be paying their subprime mortgages don't have enough money. That was always been the rotten apple in the low-end mortgage business."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Where's the Smoking Gun? 07/31/07 - The Market's Biggest Idiots
by Bill Bonner "Surely, the fellow who buys a trashy barrack in a bad part of town using a subprime ARM is an idiot… But so is the fellow who buys a whole inventory of these packaged mortgages - collateralized debt obligations - asking for trouble."
- Views from the Fuse by Kate Incontrera: Useless Curfew for the Debt Ceiling 07/30/07 - Complimentary Cash in a Fantasy Casino
by Bill Bonner "Real wealth is neither having more money, nor having higher priced stocks. Real wealth is accumulated capital - buildings, tools, factories…and the skills to know how to use them."
- Guest Essay by The Mogambo Guru: Being Fed Bigger Bread Prices 07/27/07 - The Real Boom's Evil Twin
by Bill Bonner "In order to fully enjoy a crack up boom you have to understand that a crack up boom is not all it's cracked up to be. It is fundamentally a feature of monetary inflation, not of real economic growth. Easy come; easy go."
- Guest Essay by Bill Bonner: The Collapse of Collapse 07/26/07 - Cheap Oil Like Jonestown Kool-Aid
by Bill Bonner "Since the era of cheap oil is coming to a close…Americans will have to stop living in ugly, soul-destroying suburbs; they will have to stop their vulgar consumerism… They'll have to change, whether they like it or not."
- Guest Essay by Greg Guenthner: Don't Withhold the Don'ts 07/25/07 - Boom-retardant Portfolios
by Bill Bonner "So what do you want at the end of a crack up boom? Gold. Something tangible…that doesn't lose value and can't be created out of thin air - or by flipping a switch on a printing press."
- Guest Essay by Adrian Ash: Stop! Or the Economy Gets It 07/24/07 - Standing Atop Mount Inflation
by Bill Bonner "According to Ben Bernanke, the mountain we are standing on is one where inflation poses no problem. Our suspicion is that he is wrong…"
- Guest Essay by David Galland: Golden Profits from the Chinese Trade Deficit 07/23/07 - Fall Like a U.S. Dollar, Sting Like a Bee
by Bill Bonner "The typical American barely notices; but the overseas speculator feels every slight drop in the dollar like a bee sting. And the risk to the world financial bubble is that he might go into shock."
- Guest Essay by The Mogambo Guru: Prices Benefit from Spooked Shorts 07/20/07 - Greenback to the Future
by Bill Bonner "As we get older we take with us only memories and money (property). If all goes well, when we grow into middle age, the memories grow with us…and the money does too."
- Guest Essay by Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva: The Unbearable Lightness of the Buck 07/19/07 - Fed Speak for Dummies
by Bill Bonner "Money that is created 'out of thin air' - courtesy of central banks and financial firms - tends to go back from whence it came. For every genesis of wealth creation…there is an exodus of wealth destruction."
- Guest Essay by Tom Au: A Broken Accord 07/18/07 - The Housing Market's Stray Puppy
by Bill Bonner "The homeowners are often stuck - with a nice house, but no way to pay for it. Finally, the long arm of the law stretches out and takes their house away from them. But that is hardly the end of the story…"
- Guest Essay by Howard Ruff: Spending Like a Drunken Sailor 07/17/07 - The Flirting Mistress of Prosperity
by Bill Bonner "That the U.S. economy has had only one minor recession since 1991 we take as cause for alarm…like a teenager who is unusually polite; we figure he's up to something."
- Guest Essay by Puru Saxena: Summer Sale 07/16/07 - A Faux Boom Built on Phony Money
by Bill Bonner "When the Fed (actually the Treasury) prints up an extra dollar bill, the gesture lacks sincerity; like a duelist who first smiles and shakes your hand, then walks back twenty paces and pulls a trigger; you know he didn't really mean it."
- Guest Essay by The Mogambo Guru: No More Wind in Existing Home Sails 07/14/07 - Suicide By Strip Mall
by James Howard Kunstler "The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) was formed in 1993 by a cadre of revolutionary architects who had decided that enough was enough with a nation bent on committing suicide by strip mall."
- Guest Essay by Kevin Kerr: Tastes Like Chicken - I Mean Cardboard 07/13/07 - Billion-Dollar Protectionist Measures
by Bill Bonner "What's wrong with these terrorists? We don't know. As near as we can tell, they're the most dangerous enemy that doesn't really threaten us. But billions of dollars and countless hours are spent trying to protect us from them."
- Guest Essay by Bill Bonner: When Genius Fails…and Fails…and Fails 07/12/07 - Mortgage Backed Temptation
by Bill Bonner "Now you can get a mortgage, apparently, over the Internet. Lender and borrower never meet. And then, of course, Wall Street created a whole industry…to take these mortgages and turn them into new and titillating products."
- Guest Essay by Greg Guenthner: The New Age Beverage Revolution 07/11/07 - Fed Flounders as U.S. Dollar Drowns
by Bill Bonner "Three years or so ago, we suggested that the dollar would go to $1.50 per euro. The buck promptly went up - making a fool of us. But even the world's luckiest currency cannot escape the fundamental laws of economics forever."
- Guest Essay by Nassim Nicholas Taleb: It's Not Such a Small World After All 07/10/07 - Real Estate's Harsh Realities
by Bill Bonner "When you need to make a monthly mortgage payment, there is not much fantasy or romance to it. It is real. When you don't have the money, it is even more real…which is to say, the experience is more intense and more memorable."
- Guest Essay by Mark Skousen: Gone, But Not Forgotten 07/09/07 - Fire Up the Printing Press
by Bill Bonner "Soon, the whole world has money galore - green money with dead presidents, blue money with pictures of cathedral windows, purple money with a portrait of Adam Smith on it. Our own wallet is a veritable art gallery of currencies!"
- Guest Essay by The Mogambo Guru: When Good Money Goes Bad 07/07/07 - Big Trouble in Little China
by Kate "Short Fuse" Incontrera "The FDA recently blocked the sale of five kinds of farm-raised fish from China: shrimp, catfish, eel, basa and dace, due to possible contamination." 07/06/07 - Market-Made Shock Waves
by Bill Bonner "When money and credit are free and easy, people become free and easy with them. They begin spending more than they should…and investing recklessly. Eventually, there is a shock… a tipping point…a moment of desperate reality…"
- Guest Essay by Bill Bonner: Bear's Market Blues 07/05/07 - Counting Swans on Wall Street
by Bill Bonner "Wall Street cannot really measure risk. It doesn't know any better than we do when the 'black swan' is going to appear."
- Guest Essay by Christopher Hancock: All Aboard the Buffett Express 07/04/07 - A Lack of Financial Independence
by Bill Bonner "This Independence Day finds Americans less independent than ever before. They count on the Arabs for energy. And they depend on the Asians for money to pay for it."
- Guest Essay by Bill Bonner: Land of the Free 07/03/07 - Collateral Damage in the Subprime Market
by Bill Bonner "The wheels of Financial Fate may grind slowly…but they grind exceedingly fine. And America's middle class is beginning to notice."
- Guest Essay by Chris Mayer: The Rails Return 07/02/07 - Middle of the Road Financial Woes
by Bill Bonner "Subprime mortgages represent a substantial portion of the entire mortgage market. But it is not just the subprime part that poses a threat. The real problem is that American homeowners have too little money."
- Guest Essay by The Mogambo Guru: The "Art" of Devaluing Money << Prev Next>>
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