Ideas and analysis on money, markets and the world around us.
In August 2011 I wrote to the Financial Services Authority to seek confirmation that the London-based custodians of SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) and iShares Silver Trust (SLV) were being regulated as custodians, despite the…
Read the articleGold and silver continued their consolidation after the April lows, trading in narrow ranges with a firm undertone. Attention is now firmly focused on Chinese and Indian demand for gold, which between them is absorbing…
Read the article“STOCKS ROAR BACK” is this morning’s London City AM headline – reporting news that the Dow Jones “smashed through” the 15,000 mark yesterday to a record nominal high, with the FTSE 100 also marking a five-and-a-half…
Read the articleA preview of the current lively debate between the 2 sides of the economic coin. Last week, an Austrian-School economist, Robert Wenzel, gave a speech to the New York Federal Reserve , and separately Bloomberg hosted a…
Read the articleRegular readers will know I am in the inflation, possibly hyperinflation camp; but there are those that think the future is more likely to be deflationary. In the main this is the view of neoclassical economists,…
Read the articleAdam Smith’s great insight was that in a commercial transaction both parties benefit. Before his time, it was generally believed that in an exchange of goods, one party usually gained what the other lost. The mistake…
Read the articleAn article by Professor Lew Spellman has caught the attention of the sharp-eyed, and may indeed be important. Spellman, who in the past has been an economist at the Fed and served as an assistant to the Chairman of the…
Read the articleMuch has been learned from the ongoing financial debacle that has been painfully rattling the world’s financial structure in recent years. Foremost among these valuable lessons is the realisation that all financial…
Read the articleHere is a puzzle for Keynesian and other neo-classical economists. When a consumer buys something, he must choose; and if he increases his purchase of one product, he must reduce his purchases of other products by the…
Read the articleIt seems that every time you turn over a stone on the rocky shore that is the financial condition of the eurozone you find yet another nasty creature underneath. This time it is to be found across the accounts of the…
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