Oh, where to begin, dear reader? We have something important on our mind... Where is the real bubble? Is it a bubble in commodities? Or a bubble in the people who buy them? By the charts ye shall know them — bubbles, that is. The lines roll along nicely, calmly, along ...read more

So this is what it feels like in an inflationary melt up. House prices were up 6.2% in the third quarter over the same time last year, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. House prices in the capital cities are surging. Stocks are surging. Gold and oil ...read more

Every time I do a Q and A after a college lecture, somebody says (with a fanfare of indignation) — so as to reveal their own brilliance in contrast to my foolishness — “You haven’t said anything about overpopulation!” Right. I usually don’t bother. Their complaint, of course, implies that we ...read more

In The Long Emergency (2005, Atlantic Monthly Press), I said that we ought to expect the federal government to become increasingly impotent and ineffectual - that this would be a hallmark of the times.  In fact, I said that any enterprise organized at the colossal scale would function poorly in ...read more

The expansion of health insurance and government entitlements created "free money" and thus the explosion of healthcare costs. The solution is simple and "impossible": we all pay cash. Here's why healthcare (a.k.a. sick-care) costs cannot be reduced; the entire system is based on vast pools of "free money." The corporate-America or ...read more

Satyajit Das’s book, Traders, Guns & Money, opens with a great anecdote about a meeting with an Indonesian noodle company. The noodle men were “Indonesians of Chinese extraction,” Das writes. “They were part of the infamous ‘bamboo network’ of ethnic Chinese business interests that crisscrossed South East Asia.” The noodle ...read more

In the twilight of the Bush days, in the twilight of the twilight season, a consensus has formed that we are headed into a long, dark passage leading we know not where. Even CNBC's Lawrence Kudlow has been reduced to searching for stray "mustard seeds" of hope on hands and ...read more

I have a good friend named Bill who lives on the convergence of two tidal streams in an area aptly named: Twin Rivers.  Last year his bulkhead was destroyed in a severe storm.  The problem with repairing a bulkhead is that it is underwater, and that presents peculiar challenges.  The ...read more

There are a lot of ways to kill something, either slowly or quickly.  As for a living thing, you can shoot it, run over it, or use some other instant way of getting rid of it.  There are slow ways, such as poison administered gradually, or perhaps destroying its ability ...read more

“U.S. financial firms have taken write downs and losses of $666.1 billion since the beginning of 2007,” according to Bloomberg. There you have it. The number of the bust. The financial end times rolled on yesterday. The latest twist is the decision of U.S. regulators to come to the aid ...read more