Ideas and analysis on money, markets and the world around us.
Sometimes 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…
Read the articleEarly in 2011, the London Bullion Market Association began to push for gold to be recognised by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision as the ultimate high-quality liquid asset. It has been a planned approach…
Read the articleI am an avid reader of monetary history. Of late I have been focusing on the monetary events of the 1920s and 1930s. By learning from the maelstrom that riled the global financial scene during those two tumultuous…
Read the articleThe assessment of economic growth based on Gross Domestic Product is a fallacy, because GDP is merely a measure of the amount of money in an economy. The one thing it does not measure, which is central to economic…
Read the articleThe constant talk about gold’s lack of yield, which in many analysts’ opinion disqualifies it as a desirable asset, ignores the very important and extremely valuable function that gold performs as an independent and…
Read the articleIt has been over a year since Mr Axel Weber made his surprise decision not to seek the top post at the European Central Bank, which led soon thereafter to his resignation as president of the Bundesbank. These events…
Read the articleThe rate at which the majority of the eurozone is descending into insolvency is accelerating. The rescue package for Spanish banks, which appears to have been provisionally set at a figure designed to impress the…
Read the articleThe silver price is depressed compared with its historical relationship to gold, one ounce being worth about 55 of silver, against the historical rate of 15 or 16. The reason, perhaps, has to do with silver’s…
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