According to Richard Wiggins who writes in Barron’s that gold “is a soft, semi-useless metal with very few industrial applications,” and “Ultimately, this gold bubble ends in tears.” “A vital observation of the fun-starved Austrian school of economics is that investors err together, so unanimity of opinion is a danger sign,” writes Wiggins, who is chief investment strategist for First Michigan Bank, a private bank that is purchasing failed banks from the FDIC. Join the discussion and post a comment Related posts: It’s good to be the FDIC It’s Friday, which means another bank closure Grantham “Guarantees” that Gold Will Crash
The ECB released the twice yearly Finanical Stability Review report today. Here are couple of articles about the report: From the Financial Times: ECB warns of ‘hazardous contagion’ The eurozone’s financial sector and economy are facing “hazardous contagion” effects from the region’s debt crisis, according to the European Central Bank …
Just continuing a theme … From Eddie Baeb at Crain’s Chicago Business: Nearly vacant condo tower goes back to lender The 35-story Lexington Park, near Michigan Avenue and Cermak Road, was surrendered last week by its Irish developer through a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.
Indian economy witnessed significant growth both in January-March quarter of 2010 and April 1 2009 to March 31 2010 Fiscal year (fiscal year in India is counted from 1 April). For the January-March 2010, the growth was 8.6% which was …
By Claus Vistesen: Copenhagen With Edward busy mingling with the economic elite and literally saving Spain one step at the time I thought that it would be time for some random shots here at GEM.
A few weeks ago I posted a link to a presentation put together by Spiegel Online showing the maturity profile of the debt of Ireland and other European sovereigns with high deficits. The exact nature of the calculations for Ireland were questioned at the time in the comments.
Shane Coleman of the Sunday Tribune reckons that It was extraordinary to hear commentators’ reaction to the spat between UCD’s Morgan Kelly and the Department of Finance. The latter was roundly criticised in some quarters for having the audacity to put up a strong opposing case to Kelly’s thesis that it was a matter of when, and not if, Ireland went bust.
There has been some debate on this website and elsewhere about the calculations underlying Morgan Kelly’s recent Irish Times article . Morgan has kindly agreed to provide a spreadsheet illustrating his calculations. You can find the spreadsheet here .
In two weeks, I am supposed to speak on a panel entitled “Financial Re-regulation.” My question is, what re-regulation? To me, re-regulation means you would reverse some step that you took toward deregulation. But the new financial reform bill does not reverse any of those steps, as far as I know
Economists use the term “rent seeking” to refer to people investing resources in getting government favors. In the Concise Encyclopedia article I wrote on this, I explain why I think the term is inappropriate. But if rent seeking were the appropriate term, then what Tyler Cowen quoted about Greece today could be called “rent sucking.” Key quote : AirSea’s odyssey illustrates one of the key problems preventing Greece from generating the economic growth it needs to pay off its heavy debts: Critics say a sprawling civil service has tried to secure its own survival through an opaque patchwork of fees, taxes and red tape.
Over at GNXP, Razib Khan put up a post on the historical demographics of German Jews as compared to the current demographics of American Jews that I thought might interest you.[I]n regards to the future of the American Jewry I think the story outlined in Amos Elon’s The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933 may serve as a possible vision of the future. Elon notes that
OUTSIDERS David McWilliams Directed by Conall Morrison. The Peacock Theatre 16 June-3 July Previews 9-15 June OUTSIDERS is a characteristically vivid, humorous and uncompromising account of what is going on in Ireland. In a unique theatre piece, McWilliams offers a narrative of the recent collusion between the insiders of the Irish political system and the financial sector.
An Taoiseach has said the following in relation to Morgan Kelly’s article: “Really implicit in some of the argumentation is the idea that it would be better for Ireland to default. But we simply don’t accept that at all and I think all of the implications from other countries where that happens greatly undermines, not just in terms of financial credibility but also the ability to retain confidence at home,” he added
Martin Wolf has a really nice column here . For those of you who can’t access the article, the bottom line is that German and Asian savers have (via their banks) invested their savings in an exceptionally foolish manner — that is, by lending to the likes of us, to finance our excessive consumption habits
Following on from John McHale’s post over the weekend, here ’s an expanded version of the document I sent to John. There seems to be some confusion out there about the extent of Irish bank bond debt, about the various types and about how much is covered by the September 2008 guarantee. The document draws together the relevant information on maturity of bank debt from the annual reports of Anglo , AIB , BoI , INBS and Irish Life and Permanent .
Gary Belsky, Editor-in-Chief at ESPN The Magazine, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his career path in journalism and the day-to-day life of editing a major American magazine.
I’ll start by linking to and quoting Rory Carroll’s Guardian article “Cuba suffers exodus of the best and the brightest as economy remains in the doldrums”.Young people, especially well-educated professionals, are fleeing the island. Tens of thousands have emigrated in the past two years. The exodus has alarmed the communist government but remains largely unreported, a taboo topic for state media
By Claus Vistesen: Copenhagen Yours truly is actually a macroeconomist, indeed with a knack for financial markets, but still; a macroeconomist nonetheless. However, you would not have gotten that impression from the writings here end last week where I worried a lot about the worry of financial markets. I still do, worry that is, mostly because we are in a very delicate situation where a severe shock in financial markets can easily and quickly be transmitted into the real economy
by Edward Hugh: Barcelona German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters in Brussels yesterday (Monday) that getting their deficits down was “the only task that everyone has to fulfill for himself and for the common good.” Meanwhile, over in New York, Paul Krugman was busy writing on his blog that “the most startling and frustrating thing about the debate over the fate of the euro is the way almost everyone avoids confronting the core issue” – which is, according to Krugman, that “wages in Greece/Spain/Portugal/Latvia/Estonia etc. need to fall something like 20-30 percent relative to wages in Germany”.
Russ Roberts, host of EconTalk, discusses his paper, “Gambling with Other People’s Money: How Perverted Incentives Created the Financial Crisis.” Roberts reflects on the past eighteen months of podcasts on the crisis, and then turns to his own take, a narrative that emphasizes the role of government rescues of creditors and the incentives this created for imprudent lending. He also discusses U.S. housing policy, particularly the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and how the government’s implicit guarantee of lenders to the GSE’s interacted with housing policy to increase housing prices
Ed Leamer of UCLA talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the state of econometrics. He discusses his 1983 article, “Let’s Take the ‘Con’ Out of Econometrics” and the recent interest in natural experiments as a way to improve empirical work. He also discusses the problems with the “fishing expedition” approach to empirical work
The pair will continue to strengthen the Indian economy grows and there is foreign direct investment. With greece crisis excite bound to be some profit taking in the Indian markets by FII and capital flight out of India. …
Japanese stocks rose for the first time in three days after the European Union agreed to an unprecedented loan package to bail out Greece and prevent the debt crisis from spreading.
Indian economy is doing well and India has managed to survive the global crisis pretty well. There were people wanting to come in to buy before 2008, but the price rose too sharply then