Ideas and analysis on money, markets and the world around us.
We are coming up to the fifth anniversary of the financial crisis, at least for the UK’s banking system, because it was five years ago that anxious depositors were queuing up to withdraw their money from Northern Rock,…
Read the articleLike all things in life, when investing, having a high IQ is largely beneficial. It helps you to source the right information, analyse it and “know what to do”. Quite simple. But there’s a big difference between…
Read the article“The issuer’s promise” is a phrase I have used recently to describe the backing for fiat currencies. The purpose of this article is to define it further, given that it is increasingly likely to be challenged in the…
Read the articleOn Thursday the European Central Bank’s Mario Draghi was moved to defend the euro, after Spain’s government bond yields rose dramatically through the 7% level. And when Valencia asked the central government for a…
Read the articleWithin the eurozone there are great stresses. At one extreme there are punitive costs of borrowing for Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy; at the other there is zero or negative interest rates for…
Read the articleI have recently written about the breakdown of disaggregated data from the futures markets into producers and swap dealers for gold and silver futures, as reported in the Commitment of Traders reports issued by the US…
Read the articleHistory doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme, so the old saying goes. While we can learn many economic lessons from studying the past, countries, institutions and monetary arrangements change, rendering exact comparisons…
Read the articleSometimes bailouts do not achieve what is intended, which is one reason they should be avoided. The people of Iceland apparently have some discerning insight into this basic financial reality. When a financial collapse…
Read the articleThe LIBOR scandal has been hogging headlines of late, with questions raised again about the extent to which big banks are now a law unto themselves; the focus on Barclays obscures the fact that other banks are likely to…
Read the articleThe dream of developing a science that would allow wise philosopher kings to rule humanity from ivory towers is as old as Plato, but it received a significant boost during the 20th Century as “scientific” socialism…
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