The term “Lesser Depression” looks more appropriate by the hour. Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff suggests another label, the Second Great Contraction (to distinguish it from the Great Depression). I’ve quoted him in Food for Thought. See his excellent essay on the op-ed of the Financial Times* on Aug. 9, 2011 The [continue reading . . . ]
Is it too late to buy Apple stock (symbol AAPL)? I don’t know. I do know that an Apple store I visited recently was swamped. People weren’t quite lined up on the sidewalk, but it was a close call. The store was crawling with potential customers. Every age group from [continue reading . . . ]
In my July 3, 2011, post, I referenced my favorite economics columnist, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times. I mentioned he has argued consistently since the financial panic in the fall of 2008 that governments of rich countries should risk doing too much rather than too little to combat falling [continue reading . . . ]
The U.S. economy may be growing so slowly it is hard to find a pulse, but things are different in the rest of the world. The global economy continues to grow, and at a decent pace. Once people get their basic needs for food, clothing and shelter covered, they want [continue reading . . . ]
I posted the following April 25 2011 Will the bond market tank when the Fed stops buying Treasury paper in a few weeks? As reported in today’s Wall Street Journal, two of the biggest players in the fixed-income market are at polar opposites. They both can’t be right. As I [continue reading . . . ]
I drove to Portland from Seattle starting at mid-day Friday and so saw first hand the mess that is northbound I-5 in the Rose City at afternoon rush. Bumper-to-bumper traffic crawled between Portland’s Rose Quarter, across the Willamette River from downtown, and the Columbia River bridge (aka the Interstate Bridge) [continue reading . . . ]
It has been nearly four years since the collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds (June 2007) signaled the start of the global financial crisis, not quite three since the failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings (Sept. 14, 2008) sent banks into a panic and pushed the tottering global economy off [continue reading . . . ]
Is Microsoft CEO a Charlie Brown, tumbling embarrassingly into a heap as Lucy repeatedly snatches the football away at the last minute. Hedge-fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, famous for spotting trouble early at Lehman Brothers Holdings, thanks so. Einhorn, whose fund owns 9 million Microsoft shares, told the [continue reading . . . ]
Alaska’s stranded North Slope natural gas looks to remain stranded. The more important trend for the short term, both for Alaska and for the Puget Sound area, especially Tacoma, is that oil production continues to decline. No one who’s been paying attention to natural-gas developments was surprised that BP and [continue reading . . . ]
The news that Boeing will add 1,200 employees at Renton, south of Seattle, amounts to a significant plus for the Puget Sound Metropolitan area. It is another sign that Boeing has rediscovered the worth its Washington-based work force, even as it is on the cusp of starting up a Dreamliner [continue reading . . . ]
Don’t miss Mohamed El-Erian’s latest column in the Financial Times. I’ve posted a brief excerpt in the Food for Thought section.