Japan breaks China's stranglehold on rare metals with sea-mud bonanza … Japanese scientists have found vast reserves of rare earth metals on the Pacific seabed that can be mined cheaply, a discovery that may break the Chinese monopoly on a crucial raw material needed in hi-tech industries and advanced weapons systems. The team have found deposits just two to four metres from the seabed s...Read More
Cyprus crisis is at the heart of fundamental problems in the eurozone … According to the well-known quotation from Virgil, you should beware Greeks bearing gifts. But what about Greeks asking for them? Even if the Cypriot government has been able to facilitate a deal and get concessions from the Troika of the EU, the ECB, and the IMF, it will not close the matter. – UK TelegraphDominan...Read More
Traders cheer Cyprus deal … The euro, stocks and crude oil are firmer after Cyprus reached a deal on a €10bn bailout. Money is moving out of supposed havens, pushing the yen and Swiss franc lower, while forcing Treasury yields higher. US index futures suggest Wall Street's S&P 500 will open later in the day with a gain of eight points to 1,566, leaving the benchmark on course f...Read More
Counterparties: The broken brokerage industry … Where the hell should you put your money these days? If you're like most Americans, you probably haven't saved enough for retirement. That the stock market is flirting with an all-time high isn't actually helpful — it'll make it that much harder for savers to catch up. People used to listen to brokers for this kind of thin...Read More
Getting Beyond the Fed … Let us be the first to endorse the Centennial Monetary Commission Act, which has just been introduced in the Congress. It is being advanced not by one of the so-called marginal figures but by the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, Kevin Brady. The measure would establish a serious, bipartisan committee on monetary reform as we begin the second century under a...Read More
Japan breaks China's stranglehold on rare metals with sea-mud bonanza … Japanese scientists have found vast reserves of rare earth metals on the Pacific seabed that can be mined cheaply, a discovery that may break the Chinese monopoly on a crucial raw material needed in hi-tech industries and advanced weapons systems. The team have found deposits just two to four metres from the seabed s...Read More
Cyprus crisis is at the heart of fundamental problems in the eurozone … According to the well-known quotation from Virgil, you should beware Greeks bearing gifts. But what about Greeks asking for them? Even if the Cypriot government has been able to facilitate a deal and get concessions from the Troika of the EU, the ECB, and the IMF, it will not close the matter. – UK TelegraphDominan...Read More
Traders cheer Cyprus deal … The euro, stocks and crude oil are firmer after Cyprus reached a deal on a €10bn bailout. Money is moving out of supposed havens, pushing the yen and Swiss franc lower, while forcing Treasury yields higher. US index futures suggest Wall Street's S&P 500 will open later in the day with a gain of eight points to 1,566, leaving the benchmark on course f...Read More
Counterparties: The broken brokerage industry … Where the hell should you put your money these days? If you're like most Americans, you probably haven't saved enough for retirement. That the stock market is flirting with an all-time high isn't actually helpful — it'll make it that much harder for savers to catch up. People used to listen to brokers for this kind of thin...Read More
Investors Beware: Market Risks Today Are Higher than Ever … It's time to start worrying about the bond market … After the shot across the bow in 2008, you might have expected that regulators and market participants would use the experience to change for the better, to become more prudent, and to reduce the sorts of risky behaviors that almost crashed the entire system … &ndas...Read More
Bernanke Saying He's Dispensable Suggests Tenure Ending … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said he's "spoken to the president a bit" about his future and that he feels no personal responsibility to stay at the helm until the Fed winds down its unprecedented policies to stimulate the economy. "I don't think that I'm the only person in the world who can m...Read More
Forget Cyprus, Nobody Is Stealing from Depositors More than Bernanke … After the Federal Reserve reaffirmed its easy money policy Wednesday, Chairman Ben Bernanke was asked whether the U.S. would ever think of taxing bank depositors as Cyprus has done. He said that was very unlikely but Jim Rickards, senior managing director of Tangent Capital Partners, says the Fed already has its hands in...Read More
Infrastructure, a time for renewal … Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, Illinois, lifts up a decayed wooden tube and waves it for emphasis. Many of the city's water pipes are over 100 years old, he says. Some, it turned out when the Water Department got round to replacing them, are made of wood. No wonder the network sprang 3,800 leaks in 2011 alone. Yet at the pace of investment that preva...Read More
The West is in decline, but its values still prevail …The first ever non-European pope takes over at the Vatican, while Italy's economic ills and ungovernability foretell, it's argued, the wider decline of the West … This week, the British government will reportedly announce in its budget that Qatar is coming to the rescue of poverty-stricken, austerity-ridden Britain with a &p...Read More
Investors Beware: Market Risks Today Are Higher than Ever … It's time to start worrying about the bond market … After the shot across the bow in 2008, you might have expected that regulators and market participants would use the experience to change for the better, to become more prudent, and to reduce the sorts of risky behaviors that almost crashed the entire system … &ndas...Read More
Bernanke Saying He's Dispensable Suggests Tenure Ending … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said he's "spoken to the president a bit" about his future and that he feels no personal responsibility to stay at the helm until the Fed winds down its unprecedented policies to stimulate the economy. "I don't think that I'm the only person in the world who can m...Read More
Forget Cyprus, Nobody Is Stealing from Depositors More than Bernanke … After the Federal Reserve reaffirmed its easy money policy Wednesday, Chairman Ben Bernanke was asked whether the U.S. would ever think of taxing bank depositors as Cyprus has done. He said that was very unlikely but Jim Rickards, senior managing director of Tangent Capital Partners, says the Fed already has its hands in...Read More
Infrastructure, a time for renewal … Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, Illinois, lifts up a decayed wooden tube and waves it for emphasis. Many of the city's water pipes are over 100 years old, he says. Some, it turned out when the Water Department got round to replacing them, are made of wood. No wonder the network sprang 3,800 leaks in 2011 alone. Yet at the pace of investment that preva...Read More
The West is in decline, but its values still prevail …The first ever non-European pope takes over at the Vatican, while Italy's economic ills and ungovernability foretell, it's argued, the wider decline of the West … This week, the British government will reportedly announce in its budget that Qatar is coming to the rescue of poverty-stricken, austerity-ridden Britain with a &p...Read More
Europe, Unemployment and Instability … The global financial crisis of 2008 has slowly yielded to a global unemployment crisis. This unemployment crisis will, fairly quickly, give way to a political crisis. The crisis involves all three of the major pillars of the global system — Europe, China and the United States. The level of intensity differs, the political response differs and the...Read More