In this new addition to the site we try to make some sense of the financial world. These weekly meanderings, will introduce you to commentators that we find to be sharp and on the ball, and to news items that have grabbed our attention over the past week, and why we see them as important. Don’t forget we continually update our articles elsewhere on the site as well…
I always check out Prieur du Plessis each week. He writes the investment blog: Investment Postcards from Cape Town, and every few days posts a list of items that he has recently come across. There is generally a gem or two to be found among the list, which include audio and video clips as well as web articles. Prieur is well connected around the investment world, and he is smart and thoughtful. Here are a couple of items he posted recently…
- Nouriel Roubini (Financial Times): The risk of a double-dip recession is rising
Nouriel is a leading economist who, contrary to some, actually saw the crisis coming last year. Now, he discusses the way things are shaping up.
“The recovery will be far less robust than the optimists think. There is now a rising risk of a double-dip W-shaped recession if oil, energy and food prices continue to rise – as they are now – faster than economic fundamentals warrant”.
- Floyd Norris (The New York Times): America may need to find another financier, August 21, 2009.
Floyd often has pertinent observations to make.
As the United States rolls up record budget deficits, Asian countries are showing a reduced willingness to finance the debt. The US treasury is being forced to sell huge amounts of treasury bonds, just to keep the economy from collapsing.
We say: the current rate of offerings for sale is running at five trillion dollars per year. Can anyone spell the word “U-N-S-U-S-T-A-I-N-A-B-L-E”?
Meanwhile, over at King World News, Eric King presents a fascinating selection of interviews each week. Eric is a long-time friend of Jim Puplava at FinancialSense.com, and has often been a guest on Jim’s radio show that he presents each weekend. Eric has also stepped in and acted as a host himself on occasion.
Eric is another extremely astute observer of the financial scene, and particularly of the precious metals market. He is also very well connected in that business, and even though King World News hasn’t been running long, the site has hosted some excellent interviews with such heavyweights as Dr Marc Faber of the Boom Doom and Gloom report, Bill Fleckenstein of Fleckenstein Capital and Gerald Celente of Trends Research Institute. There are also weekly reports from Ted Butler on the metals market and Barry Ritholz on the business week plus lots of other good stuff.
This week, there was quite a discussion on silver; check out, amongst others, the audio file which contains an excellent interview by Eric of Bob Quartermain, CEO of Silver Standard Resources.
Meanwhile, the Fed is meeting at Jackson Hole, Wyoming……..
A Reuters story appeared, headlined Fed Official: Rates to Be Kept Low Past Upturn. It began…
“Financial markets have not fully understood that the U.S. Federal Reserve’s pledge to keep interest rates exceptionally low for an extended period means they will stay low beyond when officials normally would raise them, a top Fed official said on Friday. ‘I don’t think markets have really digested what that means,’ St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said in an interview.”
A prize for all those who can see the I-N-F-L-A-T-I-O-N coming down the pike…….
That’s all for this week, folks. Look for us again next week.