Financial topics

Investments, gold, currencies, surviving after a financial meltdown
Higgenbotham
Posts: 7475
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by Higgenbotham »

Neil Howe, co-author of The Fourth Turning, comments on generational spending patterns in a June 1, 2009 article in Advertising Age:
Consumer behavior has changed before and can again, said Neil Howe, founding partner of Life Course Associates and co-author of books including "13th Gen" and "Millennials Rising." "We think there's a significant generational change taking place now particularly," Mr. Howe said. "The new generation coming into rising adulthood, this new millennial generation, is much more oriented to planning, looking ahead and taking a more sober and conventional approach. They're much closer to their parents. That's being accentuated by the recession."
http://adage.com/article?article_id=136990

Now some evidence of that:
In 2008 the average price for a wedding rang in at $21,814. (That's down from $27,490 in 2007.)
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/13/smallbu ... /index.htm

Last birth year of Generation X = 1981
First birth year of Millennials = 1982
Average age of first marriage = 26

Using these estimates, 2008 is approximately the first year that weddings were majority Millennial. If we could break down other kinds of spending according to age, which we can't, it's my guess that generational changes in attitudes are leading the economic data, not the other way around. In other words, these Summer 2008 weddings were mostly planned before it was recognized that the economy was in recession.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.

greghaught
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2009 1:41 pm
Location: sacramento

Re: Financial topics

Post by greghaught »

maybe the markets have already made a generational change. this is an interview with harvard's president. she looks shook. she trying to explain the effects of the endowment being down 30% in FY2009 (ends this month)!!!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... wAUqUnHqvc

just think about how many brainiacs with computers it took to produce that loss. to me, that's mind boggling. they have to gain 42.8% from there just to get out of that drawdown. that is sad.

within the last few years, there have been numerous magazine articles and books written about these "outperforming" ivy league endowments using markowitz (nobel laureate) portfolio theory. and now, it's like the markets are saying "That was so last generation. here's your butt"

what they've been doing is selecting a variety of risky assets with "normally" low or negative correlation i.e. when something is southbound, other things are northbound. but correlations change and various economic shocks and events and circumstances can cause everything to get correlated.

for example, the rating agencies (S&P and Moodys) used the same principle (diversified risky assets w/low correlation) to miraculously transmute truckloads of subprime manure into investment grade gold MBS. someone once told them that "All real estate is local." so they thought that it couldn't all correlate. could it? :lol:

the nobel laureates over at LTCM made the same mistake. diversified low correlation. then the russian bond market collapsed and everything suddenly correlated. by the time they realized they were in trouble, they were already circling the drain. actually if they hadn't been leveraged upwards of 300:1 (brainiacs) they might have survived.

if you ever want to create a potentially toxic portfolio, just select from various "uncorrelated" risky assets. then leverage it. and that'll do it.

John
Posts: 11485
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 12:10 pm
Location: Cambridge, MA USA
Contact:

Green shoots

Post by John »

John Mauldin's column today is really hilarious.

http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/printa ... =mwo061909

He starts by saying how many times he's mocked people for saying,
"This time it's different," and then goes on to explain why "This
time it's different."

He ridicules the frequent use of the phrase "green shoots" in the
media, and then goes on to provide his own list of green shoots.

Meanwhile, yesterday on Bloomberg TV, I saw a grinning anchor declare
that the financial crisis is over, and that "an appetite for risk is
back."

This goes beyond the Principle of Maximum Ruin. These people should
be locked up in nuthouses, for their own protection and the
protection of others.

greghaught wrote: > maybe the markets have already made a generational change. this is
> an interview with harvard's president. she looks shook. she trying
> to explain the effects of the endowment being down 30% in FY2009
> (ends this month)!!!

> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... wAUqUnHqvc

> just think about how many brainiacs with computers it took to
> produce that loss. to me, that's mind boggling. they have to gain
> 42.8% from there just to get out of that drawdown. that is sad.
I'm very suspicious of that 30% figure, since the market is down 40%.
She may be seeing "green shoots," and assuming that the rally will
continue.

John

Higgenbotham
Posts: 7475
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by Higgenbotham »

Mauldin wrote a book a few years ago predicting that the economy would "muddle through". In the past, he has sort of defined "muddle through" as patches of below trend growth over a long period of time, maybe to 2020 as I seem to recall. I've noticed that he tries to fit all his forecasts to that original prediction. In the second half of 2007, he predicted the return of "muddle through" saying that it would continue for a little over a year before getting back to trend growth rates of 3% for awhile. The next part of this saga seems to be that Mauldin will now struggle to find his own unique "green shoots" to support his prediction and still make it appear that he is uniquely insightful. In reality, he is intellectually vapid and comes across as a total phony.

Lately I've been tracking the performance of the largest US pension funds. A list of the 300 largest pension funds in the world can be found here:
http://www.pionline.com/article/2008090 ... WWTOPFUNDS
Most of the US pension funds I have tracked have lost about 40% and are now severely underfunded. The best performing pension funds were slightly overfunded at the top of the bubble in 2007. There are millions of monthly retirement checks tied to the performance of these funds.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.

aedens
Posts: 4753
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 4:13 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by aedens »

Meanwhile Corporate does what to whom, not you to it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... nks-reform

Times are no different as below
http://abcnews.go.com/International/Wir ... 068&page=3
Independant sources filing focusing events.
Further: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 08990.html

We will see what the Consumer regards.

Both Colombia and Peru have built alliances with Washington and reached out to the European Union. In contrast, under Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's tutelage, Bolivia is pursuing a course of confrontation with Washington and maintains its distance to Brussels.

malleni
Posts: 150
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2008 3:34 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by malleni »

Higgenbotham wrote: ...
edit: Here's a post where you agreed with CatfishnCod: http://generationaldynamics.com/forum/v ... art=10#p97
I think this might be the first post you made on the forum...
Higgenbotham,
Thanks for this link.
I am forgotten this discussion, but as you can also see, I am still consequent in my opinion.
I do not think that anything was changed under this time - so I can only stay with my conclusions then.
On the other side, that does not mean that CatfishnCod is my second nick name. (obviously - when you considered my bad English)
Higgenbotham wrote:...
August is a guess. If I had to pin it down to which part of August, I'd guess the middle of August, but if it does happen this way I'm not going to blow my horn here. It would just be a lucky guess.
Really, I'm not saying there will be "enormous confidence in US dollar" but lack of confidence in the Fed and their ability to prop up junk dollars and asset prices that will create a demand for quality dollars by default. This will happen due to the fact that, as assets are sold, they are automatically settled in US dollars....
Yes.
You never mentioned "enormous confidence in US dollar"...
I apologize that I deliberately "amplified" your statement.
That is just in order to made a better understandings.
I mentioned before too, that I always try with "extremes". On the other side, I can not again understand why we do not agreed?
- You believe that it will come to "lack of confidence in the Fed"... Me too....
- You believe in lack of confidence in its "ability to prop up junk dollars"... Me too...
- same you think for the "asset prices" (I suppose that you think on US dollar denominated (!) assets...)... Me too...

- You mentioned "quality dollars"... I do not know what exactly you mean, but I understand "quality dollars" as everything outside US dollar denominated assets... I simply based whole story on old discussion about 17th centuries goldsmith. There I also try to go to "extreme" and understand what really "credit destruction" means... I do not thing that "credit destruction" is directly assets devaluation... I also think that in "extreme" case (just "ONE bank in country - do not default!" - test...) - this country heading to the huge inflationary load... Not - deflationary... (as I try to describe before)...
I still thought a bit about your explanation of the "deflationary jolt"...
It can possible be that you are looking on the very short time of "all other banks destruction (default)" and that you call it - deflation.
This "deflationary jolt" can last perhaps one month, or perhaps one day... or perhaps one hour... BUT - the final results (In my point of view) is "extreme" case described as - huge inflationary wave... (Not caused by FED, but by monopoly of the just ONE bank, and extremely expensive credit)
If this is some kind of your understanding - I agree even there.

Regarding Vasili MiItrokhin,
I do not have time read all these books, but I admit that it will be very interesting. When I find time, perhaps I will do it too.
In meat time I found little information on the Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Mitrokhin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive
... and I do not see anything special here.
I think that is not necessary to explain for anybody that
- KGB did everything Vasili wrote about.
- committed espionage on the US technology
- prepared assignations of opponents World wide
- .... and ALL things Vasili explained!

I do not understand why is today so difficult to understand that CIA made at least similar (or the same) kind of exercises and that CIA since it is very alive make it even today?

Regarding espionage, even if that would be very interesting, it is very seldom that you have relevant information as Vasili provided. It happened only in case of Empire (first USSR...) destruction.
So if you have time to check the other articles about it there is something about US espionage:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/despatches/40671.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/654394.stm
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/ ... 1/05/43921
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1999/10/31726
....

So much about "innocent US being spied".
... and there is much more of it, but who has time to investigate it?
Or even who dare to do so?
On those links about Vasili you can find even name of MI6 agent Richard Tomlinson who were retrieving the documents from Vasili...
Mr. Tomilson had a big problem too, but obviously, this time from MI6:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Tomlinson

Personally, I think that is not much to discuss about espionage...

Higgenbotham
Posts: 7475
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by Higgenbotham »

malleni wrote:On the other side, I can not again understand why we do not agreed?
- You believe that it will come to "lack of confidence in the Fed"... Me too....
- You believe in lack of confidence in its "ability to prop up junk dollars"... Me too...
- same you think for the "asset prices" (I suppose that you think on US dollar denominated (!) assets...)... Me too...

- You mentioned "quality dollars"... I do not know what exactly you mean, but I understand "quality dollars" as everything outside US dollar denominated assets... I simply based whole story on old discussion about 17th centuries goldsmith. There I also try to go to "extreme" and understand what really "credit destruction" means... I do not thing that "credit destruction" is directly assets devaluation... I also think that in "extreme" case (just "ONE bank in country - do not default!" - test...) - this country heading to the huge inflationary load... Not - deflationary... (as I try to describe before)...
I still thought a bit about your explanation of the "deflationary jolt"...
It can possible be that you are looking on the very short time of "all other banks destruction (default)" and that you call it - deflation.
This "deflationary jolt" can last perhaps one month, or perhaps one day... or perhaps one hour... BUT - the final results (In my point of view) is "extreme" case described as - huge inflationary wave... (Not caused by FED, but by monopoly of the just ONE bank, and extremely expensive credit)
If this is some kind of your understanding - I agree even there.
The one bank monopoly is (in a way) what the Fed and Treasury Department are trying to achieve. They are attempting to make all of the dollars in circulation "equally junky" by maintaining them at the same value even though they do not inherently have the same value. If they can achieve that, then I do agree there will be inflation, then eventually hyperinflation. I look at the probability of this scenario as being somewhere around 10% and falling as it appears to me that these attempts are failing.

A more detailed explanation of how the proliferation of junk dollars can lead to deflation is as follows.

The junk dollars were created by the private banks. The money markets are the biggest source of liquid (at the present time) junk dollars. Most of the dollars in the money markets were created by the private banks while the Fed and Treasury Department looked the other way. So what people have to do to find out is open up their prospectus or find some online. In the prospectus for the money market, there will be a list of the assets. For example, it may say "Commercial Paper 34.8%". That would mean that 34.8% of the money market fund is composed of commercial paper. Under that heading, there will be a list of commercial paper the fund is holding. The list will contain entries like "Whistlejacket, LLC $50,000,000 due 10/24/09 0.87%" Whistlejacket, LLC would be what is called an SIV. The SIV takes debt like credit card debt (as just one example) and "securitizes" it with the end result being this short term commercial paper that the money market fund can purchase. So in effect credit card debts, etc., are being converted into liquid cash because only a limited percentage of that money market fund is being tapped into. It's the same way a bank operates. As long as only a small percentage of people appear at the window of the bank at any one time to withdraw cash, everything is fine.

So here's one main point and I can't stress this enough. These junk dollars were not created by the US government or the Federal Reserve. They were in fact created by private banks.

The problem here is unemployment is increasing and credit card charge-offs are now at the 10% level and rising. That would mean that some of the "money" in these funds isn't really there. Granted, there is still money available for normal day to day withdrawals in the same sense that a bank that is in trouble would still have cash at the window under normal circumstances. In the event that there is a run on the money market funds, it would work in a similar way to the bank runs in the 1930's, but at the same time it will be different. The reason it will be different is that a money market fund has a value of 1.000 dollars. That 1.000 value is called "the buck". If the value drops below 1.000 it is called "breaking the buck". The Federal Reserve has said that they will guarantee this value. With credit card charge-offs hovering at 10% and increasing, unemployment at nearly 10% (officially and we know this is a lie), auto sales getting smashed, and all these other problems, the true value of the money in these money market funds is dwindling. Now investors are coming to the point where they need to make a decision. They will need to decide whether they want to be in a money market fund that pays, say, 1.5% interest and has a value of, say, 0.950 but is still trading at 1.000 because the Fed has said they will guarantee the 5% loss (these are the "junk dollars" I have been talking about) OR whether they want to be in safe and secure dollars like treasury bills that pay, say, 0.3% interest and where a dollars worth of treasury bills is really worth a dollar.

So here's a second main point and, again, I can't stress this enough. Not all liquid dollars in the system have the same quality (or inherent value). The Fed is trying to maintain equivalence in quality (or value) in order to keep the supply of liquid dollars high. As the economy fundamentally erodes, the real difference between junk dollars and quality dollars increases and the price of the Fed guarantee goes up while, at the same time, the ability of the Fed to honor the guarantee is lessened.

Of course, when investors decide to pull the plug will depend on a lot of things. Recently I have read that Congress has subpoenaed documents related to discussions Bernanke and Paulson had with Kenneth Lewis where certain threats may have been made regarding the Merrill deal. If Bernanke runs into serious trouble in Congress and the market worries that he may be removed, then that will naturally lead to questions about the guarantees he has made. Another potential trigger would be the possibility that t-bill interest rates suddenly increase to match the rates offered by the money market funds which contain the junk money. In that case, there would be no logical reason to keep dollars in these funds at all. Almost anything could trigger a run out of the money market funds. It could be something a government official says, a rumor about a government official, anything at all.

If/when that happens, the funds will "lock up" as I have stated before. In a panic situation, there will be a bid price (maybe) and an ask price that are under 1.000 and nothing much will move. What you will see instead is the value of that fund dwindling and the liquidity moving out of it (at the margin just like what is happening in the real estate market). The investors who are getting out will be getting out at less than a buck while everyone else who is still in will be watching the value of their junk money deflate vis-a-vis safe and secure dollars. For what will happen next, google "Reserve Fund" and read about what happened to holders of shares in the Reserve Fund last Fall when it broke the buck. As I remember, nobody could get their money out for several weeks or months after the fund was shut. That fund was probably absorbed by another fund but this time what is likely to happen is there will be fire sales of assets to liquidate the funds and then after several months the investors will get so many cents on the dollar.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.

Higgenbotham
Posts: 7475
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by Higgenbotham »

malleni wrote:I do not understand why is today so difficult to understand that CIA made at least similar (or the same) kind of exercises and that CIA since it is very alive make it even today?
Regarding espionage, even if that would be very interesting, it is very seldom that you have relevant information as Vasili provided. It happened only in case of Empire (first USSR...) destruction.
So if you have time to check the other articles about it there is something about US espionage:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/despatches/40671.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/654394.stm
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/ ... 1/05/43921
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1999/10/31726
....

So much about "innocent US being spied".
Personally, I think that is not much to discuss about espionage...
The main thing I was trying to show was what the Russians were saying internally as their justification for the civilian Directorate T operations. Their economic system couldn't keep up with the US in the area of civilian technology and the Russian leadership acknowledged that they couldn't. Since their economy was falling behind, to keep up with the US they decided to use espionage to gather Western technology in the area of food production, machine tools, computers, etc. In other words, the vulnerability of the Soviet system was that it tended to fall behind in applying science to produce technology.

It seems to me that's still the case with Russia and China today, although the evidence is scattered around more and not contained in a set of Russian or Chinese documents that have been neatly translated into a handy book.

But I do agree with your points regarding the state of spying activities today. It's well known that the US government has been spying on US citizens as well. Somebody from the Bush Administration, I can't remember offhand, was on television after Obama got elected with very direct comments about this activity.

edit: Here's a reference on that:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Whistlebl ... _0121.html

I think this points to where the US feels it is vulnerable. Not so much in the area of technology but in the ability to defend itself against terrorist acts. It's interesting to me that some of those articles you posted date all the way back to 1997, well before the 9-11 attacks. It shows that the US was able to recognize the terrorist threat but was somehow unable to stop it. It's a fundamental flaw in our system. In much the same way, it's a fundamental flaw in the Russian and Chinese systems that they seem unable to turn scientific knowledge into civilian technological advancement.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.

aedens
Posts: 4753
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 4:13 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by aedens »

Script: The “nightmare scenario” for inflation starts with growth much poorer than the administration’s forecasts, possibly due to larger government distortions and higher tax rates. Lower growth is the single most important danger to the Federal budget. Then, the government may have to make good on its many credit guarantees, and continue its string of bailouts. If this happens, prospective deficit to GDP ratios will rise much further than current projections suggest. When investors see that path coming, they will quite suddenly bail out of the dollar; we will see a dramatic rise in interest rates, a fall of the dollar, and large inflation — and quite possibly “stagflation” not inflation associated with a boom.
http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.co ... nceton.pdf
===========================================================================
Higgenbotham
The Fed can't guarantee any of this mess. Once investors get nervous about what the Fed can and can't do, at some point the credit and stock markets will panic. I'm guessing August on that, but who knows.
============================================================================
Dollar: In this analysis, we can read the government’s actions as a much modified version of Friedman and Schwartz’s advice for the great depression. In that event, the Fed failed to accommodate a demand for money at the expense of government debt. In this one the government recognized and accommodated a massive demand for both money and government debt at the expense of private debt.
Current: Conveyance of Gold EU tonnage sales. History does convey that Currency is the true safety valve to relive economic stress. http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRe ... dChannel=0
It was plain to the eye who seen what and when to debt stabilization. Namely influx basket currencys.
http://dallasfed.org/research/eclett/2009/el0904.html
Taming the Credit Cycle by Limiting High-Risk Lending by Jeffery W. Gunther
This as a taxpayer simply put is the problem and why they should follow the debt to logical conclusion of timely terminations from the top down hence the true reform ensues. Given the extent to avarice they will never let it be so in the vein of atypical Syndicalism stays veiled from public discernment and will be rendered for purpose of Capital and Labor Responsibilities systemic misnomers. The encyclical Quaddragesimo anno 1931 contained passages which could but need not to date be interpreted as an endorsement of corporativism. The relevance to be seen is in a historical context of view is then it only lasted a few years and will be a simple addition to human action of governance expediencies to delay proper supply chain metrics. Minsky elaborated to the capital management ideologues and precursors of fund capital movements.
Most of the Administration’s defense of fiscal stimulus (For example Bernstein and Romer 2009) cites simple Keynesian flow multipliers, not the sort of fiscal-monetary inflation I have described as “stimulus.” And by May, these simple positive multipliers turned in to a widespread worry about fiscal sustainability and can be read as dramatically negative multipliers. For example, the CEA’s (2009) analysis of the Administration health proposal states that “slowing the growth rate of health care costs will prevent disastrous increases in the Federal budget deficit” and will raise the level of GDP by 8%, permanently. Secretary Geithner went out of his way to assure the Chinese that the dollar will not be inflated (Cha 2009). In sum, government statements do not paint a clear picture. This may reflect an understandable indecision on the part of the government facing a Catch-22: In this analysis, the only way to “stimulate” is to commit forcefully and credibly to an unsustainable fiscal path, so that people will try to get rid of all their government debt including money, and in so doing drive up demand for goods, services, and real assets. But the government clearly understands that such an action trades modest stimulus today for financial and economic chaos when the inflation really comes. Faced with that stark decision, it is not surprising that the government settles for half-measures, wishful thinking and contradictory statements — as the Japanese were accused of doing for a decade. Insert debt to GDP ratio here to the G-20 over 30 years.
Net result: http://www.piie.com/publications/pb/pb09-10.pdf
What is clear, however, is that after the highly appropriate effective appreciation, it is important that China changes its peg from the dollar to a basket to stabilize the effective rate.
A fundamental equilibrium exchange rate (FEER) is defined as an exchange rate that is expected to be indefinitely sustainable on the basis of existing policies. It should therefore be one that is expected to generate a current account surplus or deficit that matches the country’s underlying capital flow over the cycle, assuming that the country is pursuing internal balance as well as it can and that it is not restricting trade for balance of-payments reasons.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... ollar.html
Current : Until we see another five years' of evidence over whether China is a more consumer-driven economy, becoming bigger and bigger, and whether the euro can have a successful second decade, the dollar looks set to remain dominant." China has made some hints about loosening its hold over the yuan in recent months, but these are only early maneuvers. A second step would be to allow the yuan to become a part of the SDR – whose own value is determined by those of a basket of currencies including the dollar, pound and euro.
Quo Vadis?: Laborem exercens
Thus, the principle of the priority of labour over capital is a postulate of the order of social morality. It has key importance both in the system built on the principle of private ownership of the means of production and also in the system in which private ownership of these means has been limited even in a radical way. Labour is in a sense inseparable from capital; in no way does it accept the antinomy, that is to say, the separation and opposition with regard to the means of production that has weighed upon human life in recent centuries as a result of merely economic premises.
Such a vision of the values of human work, or in other words such a spirituality of work, fully explains what we read in the same section of the Council's Pastoral Constitution with regard to the right meaning of progress: "A person is more precious for what he is than for what he has. Similarly, that entire people do to obtain greater justice, wider brotherhood, and a more humane ordering of social relationships has greater worth than technical advances. For these advances can supply the material for human progress, but of themselves alone they can never actually bring it about".
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_ ... en.html#-D
To separate the cause and the cure is only hindered by values which to date followed to logical conclusions do tell of its rate of malinvestment “oversupply” and intent in multiple terms of true regard of its classed inertia in time. The customer must decide who produces what and focus capital movements.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_x ... um_en.html
To sum up, then, We may lay it down as a general and lasting law that working men's associations should be so organized and governed as to furnish the best and most suitable means for attaining what is aimed at, that is to say, for helping each individual member to better his condition to the utmost in body, soul, and property. It is clear that they must pay special and chief attention to the duties of religion and morality, and that social betterment should have this chiefly in view; otherwise they would lose wholly their special character, and end by becoming little better than those societies which take no account whatever of religion. The arrow of time properly indicates who omits relevance to the common good. It has been said give to the authorities without malice since it is not the most important thing in life and I agree to the extent we must and are hidebound to hold them accountable. The differences in direction of that arrow are no different in any time. We were clearly told what it would bring. Abraham’s seed has no excuses as in the three pillars we see today to freedom’s regard to stability. The dead letter proscribed a viable path to reason since the lack of it is the definition of hell.

aedens
Posts: 4753
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 4:13 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by aedens »

This underscores the vulnerability of these less developed, less dynamic economies and emphasizes the fragile nature of their financial markets and currencies.
Despite all of the tough talk, the dollar is holding firm and central bank reserves continue to build dollar exposure at an increasing rate. So beware of the scare headlines - the dollar’s demise is greatly exaggerated.
http://www.dailymarkets.com/forex/2009/ ... 9t-add-up/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_gold_reserves

European Union leaders met today in Brussels, to discuss the outlook for the European economies. Language in their resulting draft statement points towards a new approach to handling the downturn. "Further budget stimulus would not be warranted and attention should shift toward consolidation, keeping pace with economic recovery," the draft said. The language is a significant change from previous releases, as this is the first widespread acknowledgement of a potential turnaround in the E.U. economy.
Fundamental change indeed...
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3421 Miles to go
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