Are the Western Welfare States (the U.S., Japan, and EU nations) really going bankrupt? Things were headed that way before the credit crisis began. The Global Financial Crisis may be becoming a sovereign debt crisis and that will worsen an already bad situation.
First, let’s check out the chart below from ...read more
Mortgage Defaults May Trump the Fed
Jul 21st, 2009 | By Dan Denning | Category: Featured, Housing, Macro Economics
Good news everyone! The end of the world has been postponed indefinitely. You may now carry on as if another credit bubble is blowing (which it is, in China).
It was a truly bullish way to wrap up the week. China reported a 7.9% rise second in quarter GDP, driven mostly ...read more
Money Isn’t Wealth
Jul 7th, 2009 | By Dan Denning | Category: Featured, Gold, Macro Economics
Some Fridays are better than others. This last one was not pretty. Like a character that refuses to die in a bad horror movie, the U.S. job market posted some shocking June numbers. It has revived the dormant nightmare that this may be a long "L" shaped recession. Or even ...read more
Climate Change, Cap, Trade, and the End of the Industrial West
Jul 1st, 2009 | By Dan Denning | Category: Energy, Featured
Hey here's a question to start your Wednesday off with. If Bernie Madoff gets 150 years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme, what do you think the people who designed Social Security and the Superannuation scheme ought to get?
And speaking of colossally stupid government programs, you may have seen ...read more
The Fed and Zombie Investors
Jun 26th, 2009 | By Dan Denning | Category: Featured, Macro Economics
Damn you, World Bank.
The World Bank now says the global economy will contract by 2.9% this year instead of 1.7%. That could be right. But that's not the reason stocks are falling. The rally that began in March has now run out of steam. It's also run out of news ...read more
Last Decade: Buy Gold. This Decade: Buy Energy.
Jun 11th, 2009 | By Dan Denning | Category: Energy, Featured, Gold
It's not technically a new decade yet. But if the trade of the last decade was to sell stocks and buy gold, then maybe the best trade for the next ten years is to sell bonds and buy energy. Gas, coal, oil, conventional, unconventional, renewable, alternative. You have a whole ...read more
What Are Commodities Saying About the Financial Crisis?
Jun 2nd, 2009 | By Dan Denning | Category: Commodities, Featured, Gold
Can you believe it's already June? What a month May was for commodities. They are Lazarus, come from the dead to tell us all that the world will not stop turning if there is a financial crisis in the West. Or something like that.
If we were using numbers instead of ...read more
Progressive Taxation, an Assault on Liberty
May 15th, 2009 | By Dan Denning | Category: Featured, Macro Economics, Politics
Societies that use tax law as a way to achieve political or social goals are societies based on envy and resentment. That is, how a nation treats taxes tells you something of the character of a nation.
So when you hear anyone say that the level of taxation in a country ...read more
Very Large Bubble of Government Debt
May 13th, 2009 | By Dan Denning | Category: Featured, Macro Economics, Personal Investing
Simple question: how do you invest during an inflationary boom? Today, some concrete ideas. And the simplest idea of them all-when you consider soaring government deficits-is to sell government bonds and buy beaten down, world-class equity.
Mind you, this is if you want to be in the equity market at all. ...read more
S&P Ends Its Rally and Government Debt Still a Problem
Apr 27th, 2009 | By Dan Denning | Category: Featured, Macro Economics
Buenos dias. The obvious story to lead with to begin the week is the outbreak of swine flu in Mexico. But as there is nothing any of us can do about that, we'll report that Chinese gold reserves have grown 75% since 2003 to over 1,000 tonnes. That's small compared ...read more

