The Bushobama Depression

Well it’s official. It’s a Depression. Two days ago at a regional conference in Kuala Lumpur, IMF Managing Director Dominique Stauss–Kahn said that the big world economies are already in a depression. Of course this is coming from a guy with a hyphenated name like a Singing Nun who is also known in France as

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Thoughts on Default

This is a hundred billion mark note from Germany circa 1923. With this bill you could buy 2 beers during the episode of German hyperinflation which ended in November 1923 when the government finally capitulated and issued the new and improved Rentenmark. You could exchange 10 of these bills to obtain one Rentenmark or 1

Economists and the Corporate State

The ongoing debate about the stimulus package illustrates to this writer the utter futility of politicians invoking economists to support their arguments . Economists pack the upper echelons of government, academia and wall street and their assumptions drive policy like no other discipline. Economics has evolved over the years with one school of thought such

How low can you go

I stumbled upon this graph the other day which really stunned me. I have an investment friend, F, and the other day he idly wondered where the bottom in the markets might be. This graph represents the inflation adjusted DJ Industrial average from 1949 to the present. That big dip in the middle is 1982.

The Big Picture

I started this blog with the goal of trying to understand the society within which I live. I do it as much for my benefit as to inform any readers I might have. Most of this country has little understanding of the causes and effects of the events impacting their lives, myself included. If you

To nationalize or not to nationalize

Well I am no longer alone in the wilderness crying out for the establishment of a new national bank. As my reader(s) know, I have vacillated back and forth between nationalizing the banks(some of them) and starting from scratch with a new bank. And by a new bank, I mean a new GOOD BANK. Not

Depression

It’s still possible that this “R” word will not turn into the “D” word but in parts of the world it is a depression already. The quarterly economic output numbers are in. In our Great Depression GDP fell 6+ percent in 1931. In Korea last quarter it was down 22%. In Japan 12%. In Germany

The Debt Depression

I know. You’ve seen my debt to GDP graphs before and I have been beating you over the head with them but I am entirely convinced that understanding the role of debt is crucial if you want to understand how we got to this current catastrophe. I particularly like the colors in this one. That

Titanic Metaphors

I continue to write forcefully on today’s economic and social events as much to inform others as to clarify my own thinking and understanding of these events. I would urge any readers to seek out their own oracles and data sets and come to their own conclusions. Cast an especially wary eye at government and

Nationalize the Banks or Charge into the Valley of Death!

I had a pleasant month out of the country working on my old sailboat and while things were bad when I left, the last week or so has the US economy in free fall led by the same old suspects, the banks. While I was away I read David McCullough’s “John Adams”, a fascinating history