Yesterday, Europe was back in the news. Whenever Europe is in the headlines, the headlines are bad. And the ideas behind the headlines are absurd. In fact, it is amazing how many crackpot ideas the press can throw at you in a single day.
January 27th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | ContinuedArchive for Bill Bonner
Best-selling investment author Bill Bonner is the founder and president of Agora Publishing, one of the world's most successful consumer newsletter companies. Owner of both Fleet Street Publications and MoneyWeek magazine in the UK, he is also author of the free daily e-mail The Daily Reckoning.
Tales from the Southern Hemisphere
The Southern Hemisphere is not a bad place to be in the wintertime. That is, when it is wintertime in the Northern Hemisphere. By the time the chilly winds from Baltimore reach the southern tip of Africa they have been warmed by the South Atlantic. Flowers bloom. The sun shines. Gentle breezes glide over the fields and parking lots.
January 24th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 5 comments | Continued
The US Debt Cutting Derby
The public sector is leveraging up. The US is going deeper and deeper into debt. As it adds to the quantity of its debt outstanding, the quality should go down. And the price too. But it’s not. So, either the times are out of joint…or we are.
January 24th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
A Real Stress Test: Could Any Major Bank or Developed Nation Survive?
The conceit of modern public finance is that people with good political skills can do a better job of deciding which banks are solvent than the marketplace. ‘Raw capitalism,’ is just too impulsive, they claim.
January 23rd, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
How a Deficit in Capitalism Helped Engender the Financial Crisis
Instead of allowing capitalism to fix the problem, the feds made it worse. They gave more money to the very institutions and managers who had proved they couldn’t be trusted with it.
We don’t want to rehearse the whole sequence of events that got us to where we are. But it’s important to understand what happened.
Mitt Romney and the Tax Zombies
Mitt Romney has revealed his effective tax rate. “About 15%,” he says. That seems like more than enough to us. But it’s not enough to satisfy the zombies. Romney has made a lot of money. They want more of it.
January 20th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 1 comment | Continued
When the US Economy Runs Aground
Captain Schettino will probably never be asked to take command of another cruise ship. But Captain Bernanke and his crew are still at the controls of the US economy. Apparently, they still have no idea where they are…or where they are going.
January 20th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
BIG BROTHER LOVES YOU
Here’s what can happen if governments attack the free flow of information…
January 19th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 2 comments | Continued
The US Government’s Powers That Be
We were suspicious of the recent improvement in the unemployment numbers provided by the US Government. And of the news that consumers were going into debt to shop, again. The data were inconsistent with the “Great Correction.”
January 18th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 3 comments | Continued
Debts With Unsolvable Insolvency
Even before debt became such a big problem, real growth had already begun to disappear from the developed world. There has been none in Japan for the last 20 years…and almost no real growth in the US private sector for the last 10 years. In Europe, grosso modo, the story is similar.
January 18th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
Marines Caught Out in a Dirty War
And all over the world, the press is howling for the heads of the marines seen urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban soldiers on YouTube. Everyone is appalled. They are not defending the country. They are fighting a mean dirty war.
January 17th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 4 comments | Continued
European Downgrades: Will There Really Be a Fallout?
On Friday, after the close of business in the stock market, S&P downgraded 9 European countries. Spain and Italy were both taken down another notch, leaving Italy with a BBB+ rating and Spain with an A. But the headline damage was done to France, whose triple-A rating got downgraded to AA+.
January 17th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
The Debt of Capitalism
More thoughts on debt and the “Crisis in Capitalism“…
January 16th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
Money Printing: The Ugly Truth Behind the “Good News”
The news on the US economy has been generally “good” ever since the European Central Bank made it clear that it will print money rather than see major banks or minor nations get what is coming to them.
January 16th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 2 comments | Continued
Careful Steps to Avoid a “Dystopian Future”
What are the big risks in 2012? We can think of several. But the World Economic Forum only sees two worth mentioning – too many deficits and too great a difference between rich and poor causing a “dystopian future“.
January 13th, 2012 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
