The BRICS are making their move to shove aside the U.S. dollar (although their own troubles might interfere). The dollar dump is particularly timely in light of recent recognition that U.S. credit verges on junk status, and rates lower than…
The U.S. dollar continues its journey from Brobdingnagian to Lilliputian stature, and the latest trade report is a prelude to the dollar as microbe. The Prime Mover in this case is King Ben, who has the helicopter on track for…
Benny and the Inkjets are tossing the money around, but it didn't pump up the industrial economy the last time and QE2 will be no better, even if the next version is expectedly gihugic. He's destroying the dollar in the…
Lately I’ve been thinking about the relevance of Yogi Berra in the age of Obama. The all-star baseball catcher is best known as the master of the malapropism, and many quotes attributed to him seem especially timely in the age…
I used to believe the bankruptcy of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation would have substantial implications. The FDIC officially ran out of money last Friday when they shuttered the usual handful of banks. When they close another handful this Friday — conveniently out of the media’s not-so-watchful eye — they’ll have exactly nothing with which to back up the deposits. Since backing up deposits in failed banks is the FDIC’s entire mission, this should cause the financial system to fail overnight. The FDIC claims to be working magic to solve this problem, but they’re simply trying to gloss over a monumental problem, as even the Wall Street Journal seems to notice.
As I’ve pointed out before, I’m proud to be a doomer. I’ve never minded the negative connotation and rapid dismissal by mainstream folks. But it turns out there’s more to doomerism than I knew nearly a year ago. Kathy McMahon has developed a clever classification system for doomers. I’m easily classified as the ecosophic action-oriented variety.
Not so long ago, $60 oil represented a dire threat to the U.S. (hence, world) economy. Now that we’ve seen a price spike and a rapid decline down to half the current price and one-fifth last summer’s peak, Wall Street cheers expensive oil because it profits the oil companies.
You gotta love the media, loving Wall Street for loving the oil companies.