It’s different this time, or is it? The US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank have become gargantuan, out-of-control, rogue hedge funds. Global central banks have magicked-up hundreds of trillions of dollars in debt and guarantees. Global stock market valuations are stratospheric—buoyed by stock buybacks, funded by record corporate […]

There’s a theory that you can’t trust any message conveyed by a person’s most public expressions and gestures. Instead, the theory runs, you have to study the fleeting look, the involuntary movement. The micro-expression that lasts a second or two, before the welcome smile is fixed in place. That theory sounds good to me — […]

One of the permanent problems in writing about financial matters is that the issues at stake seem so technical, so arcane. It’s hard for any ordinary reader to get interested in these things. Hard not to think, Why does any of this matter to me? The trouble is you probably thought the same about the […]