June 30, 2008
Got any friends that smoke? Buy them a mobile phone, ideally one with an expensive data plan, like an iPhone. Turns out that the incremental expense could save their life: Using panel data from 2,100 households in 135 communities of...
Last week I cited a welling@weeden interview with two Credit Suisse strategists that made the case for inflation rapidly coming down, here is a Gavel report -- albeit somewhat graph-happy -- that makes the same case. The crux of the...
Admittedly I wouldn't want to be running a small U.S. bank right now, but you have to be in awe at downbound stats like these: ...more than half of those institutions with assets worth between $1bn and $10bn have commercial...
Whatever your feelings about the bankers behind the Bank of International Settlements, go read its just-released 2007/08 annual report. It's thought-provoking stuff, especially the discussion of recoupling risks, and of the totemic fascination with inflation that allowed interest rates to...
I call bullshit on naive contrarianism. There are too many people looking to take the rhetorical other side of every short-term blip in market sentiment. Every amateur contrarian -- many of whom admittedly talk a good game, but never trade...
Increasing number of data points suggesting that southeast Asia is under major stress. Currencies falling, countries are abandoning/cutting oil subsidies, and inflation is on a tear. Could we be at a breaking point? More reading: Poverty-hit Bangladesh forced into huge...
