In recent weeks, both have been in a stage of recovery. The gold price has reached $982 an ounce, close to its peak when it touched $1,000 an ounce. Oil prices fell in the recession by about 70 per cent, and have now received about 50 per cent.
June 4th, 2009 | William Rees-Mogg | 0 comments | ContinuedArchive for William Rees-Mogg
Leading political editor William Rees-Mogg is former editor-in-chief for The Times and a member of the House of Lords. He has been credited with accurately forecasting glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall – as well as the 1987 crash. His political commentary appears in The Times every Monday. His financial insights can only be found in the Fleet Street Letter, the UK's longest-running investment newsletter.
Housing and Unemployment Are Weaknesses in the U.S. Economy
The two obvious weaknesses of the U.S. economy are housing and unemployment. In April, new residential building in the U.S. fell to its lowest level in fifty years, dropping to an adjusted annual rate of construction of 455,000 units.
May 22nd, 2009 | William Rees-Mogg | 0 comments | Continued
What Caused the Economic Crisis
Simon Heffer, who writes a mordantly right wing column for the London Daily Telegraph recently wrote that we all know what caused the economic crisis. Perhaps he does, though he did not actually tell his readers what the cause was…
May 7th, 2009 | William Rees-Mogg | 1 comment | Continued
The 1907 Panic
It is worth studying the 1907 panic. It was a global panic, though not the first panic to have a global character. The French Mississippi Bubble and the English South Sea Bubble both burst in 1720, and that was nearly two centuries before the panic of 1907.
April 30th, 2009 | William Rees-Mogg | 1 comment | Continued
David Ricardo’s Economic Theory is Sound Doctrine
Gordon Brown has no intention of embarking on a new war, though he has defence commitments in Afghanistan, but he has failed to foresee that a large deficit makes it more difficult to support future deficits.
April 2nd, 2009 | William Rees-Mogg | 3 comments | Continued
Is Gold Money?
However, the question I find most interesting is whether gold is a real asset. One of the problems of investment is that there are two variables, reality and liquidity. Land or property are relatively illiquid, but are also real, in that they have a use which does not depend on their value in exchange. Gold is highly liquid, indeed it is more liquid than paper money.
March 12th, 2009 | William Rees-Mogg | 7 comments | Continued
The New Chinese Era
People still criticise the monolithic power of the Chinese Communist Party, but the relative change is what strikes anyone who knew the old China. China may not respect civil rights or allow certain kinds of free political discussion, but the new China is inexorably much more open and free than the old China.
March 6th, 2009 | William Rees-Mogg | 10 comments | Continued
Whiskey & Gunpowder
For the present, there is hardly anyone who is an immediate advocate of joining the euro, though there are plenty of europhiles who would expect Britain to join the euro at some future date. At the same time, the euro has become more attractive to the weaker European currencies which are outside the Eurozone…
February 26th, 2009 | William Rees-Mogg | 4 comments | Continued
Geitner Plan Falls Short
It had been hoped that the Geitner plan would support a further rally in the stock market. In fact, he only spoke for half an hour. During that period the S & P 500 fell by 3.4 per cent. The market – and particularly the traders – was disappointed by his lack of detail. Some people expressed disappointment that he did not commit the new administration to drawing a line under the crisis. The new administration had allowed expectation of a New Deal to grow, and this was not a new deal…
February 13th, 2009 | William Rees-Mogg | 4 comments | Continued
President Barack Obama and Franklin Roosevelt Are Becoming Akin
The President-Elect, Barack Obama, seems to become more Rooseveltian day by day. He has established a close personal relationship with the American public. Roosevelt used the “fireside chat” on radio to create a very similar personal following. It seems quite possible that, at some stage, President Obama will have to face the same denigration which Roosevelt suffered…
December 23rd, 2008 | William Rees-Mogg | 1 comment | Continued
David Ricardo is the Dominant British Economist of the Nineteenth Century
David Ricardo is the dominant British economist of the nineteenth century, just as Adam Smith was the dominant economist of the eighteenth century, or Maynard Keynes of the twentieth century…
December 12th, 2008 | William Rees-Mogg | 2 comments | Continued
Irving Fisher Has Come Back Into Fashion
It is extraordinary how the great American Economist, Irving Fisher, has come back into fashion. In the last week I have seen substantial references to him in The Times of London…
November 28th, 2008 | William Rees-Mogg | 5 comments | Continued
Contrarian Thinking Secured Me Against Over Optimism in the Boom Years
I call myself a contrarian, and contrarian thinking secured me against over optimism in the boom years of the 1990s and early 2000s…
November 21st, 2008 | William Rees-Mogg | 6 comments | Continued
Bear Market to Last at Least Five Years
The first is that the bear market on Wall Street is entirely likely to last for as long as five years. Of course, the recession in the economy could be shorter, though there is no guarantee of that. The second is that we may have to expect a relatively long period of high dividend yields and high price-earnings ratios.
November 14th, 2008 | William Rees-Mogg | 9 comments | Continued
European Governments of the Eurozone are Separately Responsible for Their Euro-debt
About a year or two ago, I expressed a doubt that the euro could survive a major shock, such as had repeatedly occurred in the Europe of the twentieth century. I mentioned the two World Wars, the Russian Revolution and the Great Depression as three events which would probably have led to a break up of a single European currency…
November 6th, 2008 | William Rees-Mogg | 2 comments | Continued
