Those financial forecasters, like myself, who take a generally dark view of world affairs are known by a number of monikers: prophets of doom, killjoys, pessimists, Cassandras. And that last one is interesting. Cassandra, in ancient Greek myth, was the daughter of King Priam of Troy. After Helen, she was considered the most beautiful woman [...]

Last week I wrote a piece about Congress: its failure to take responsibility for problems, the way its un-shining example has a tendency to corrupt all our other national institutions. The post garnered a remarkable number of comments, the majority of which agreed strongly with the view I expressed. Just one thing disturbed me, however, which [...]

Another day, another faux bailout. Today European finance ministers agreed to let the Spanish banks get the first €30 billion slice of their bank bailout.  Those same finance ministers are also set to approve a year’s delay in the deadline given to Spain for reaching a budget deficit of 3% of GDP. That won’t, of [...]

Hogging the headlines: In recent years, financial news has dominated the front pages – most recently the scandal at Barclays You know, there would have been a time when a financial contributor for the Daily Mail was restricted to the little stuff. Share tips, muttering about monetary policy, that sort of thing. Not any more. [...]

Two bits of news in the last couple days. One, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has decided to extend Operation Twist, a policy whereby the Fed sells short-dated government paper in order to buy the longer-dated sort. It sounds boring but it involves $267 billion, so it’s kind of consequential all the same. [...]

The United Kingdom has too much debt. Reports normally focus on government debt: currently around 80% of national income, unless you take into account (as you should) the debts of the bailed-out banks and their toxic portfolios, which would pretty much double that figure. But what about consumer debt? Mortgage debt? Business debt? The huge [...]

There’s a lot of talk about Europe at the moment, but it’s kind of the way you talk about flooding when the waters don’t reach your house. Sure, it must be real tough for the poor saps whose couches are bobbing around in their living rooms — but meantime, what’s for dinner? Unfortunately, that European [...]

You know those summer thunderstorms we used to have? You’d be sitting out in a warm garden somewhere, sipping something cold and white, looking at lightning flashing on the horizon and counting the seconds until you could hear the thunder. Well, it’s like that now, only the gap between the flash and the rumble is [...]

I don’t want to crow, but I’ve been predicting this for years: the writedowns of Greek debt, accompanied by swingeing austerity conditions, popular unrest, and (shortly) Greek exit from the Euro. You don’t have to take my word for that: my book, Planet Ponzi, pretty much mapped out the course we’re now taking. But although [...]

Regular readers of Planet Ponzi will remember that I’ve got a thing about inflation. You know: inflation is bad, printing money makes more of it, isn’t it about time we stopped making a bad problem worse? Trouble is, though, constant repetition of a theme gets boring after a while. Yes, fuel prices are up. Yes, [...]