The great wisdom traditions of the world maintain that while the individual has a great capacity for personal transformation, in the aggregate, humans function within a certain range, or standard deviation, of behavior. The same is true for human societies.[1] Thus the words of French novelist, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Kar, “The more things change, the more things stay the same.”
Continue reading “The Forgotten Man”The High Cost of Low Interest Rates
Guest blogger, Jim Grant, is the editor of the estimable Grant’s Interest Rate Observer. Having read almost all of his books, I am among the many in admiration for both Grant, the man, and the brilliance that flows from his mighty pen. He has reciprocated…proportionately, as will be evident in our next post. For the moment, he has offered here for our readers an opinion piece recently appearing in the Wall Street Journal.
Continue reading “The High Cost of Low Interest Rates”Socializing Corporate Risk-taking: Moral hazard 2.0
Attempting to ameliorate the immediate and adverse economic consequences of the rapidly spreading coronavirus, Congress is engaged in a pell-mell rush to force passage of $2 trillion in fiscal largess. Their actions are not without precedent.
Continue reading “Socializing Corporate Risk-taking: Moral hazard 2.0”Anatomy of Fear and Greed
As an eager plethora of pundits start writing the postmortem on the Fed-induced Ponzi bull market, it is being said that it ended just as it began—in chaos and out of the blue.
Continue reading “Anatomy of Fear and Greed”Market Corrosion and the Catalyst of COVID-19
This post will almost certainly be out of date by the time notice of it arrives in your inbox. That’s because the current volatility in the market is extraordinary. It’s not uncommon to see a 1% swing in as little as five minutes. After quietly and systematically marching to a succession of new highs in January and through February 19, the index has slipped into a highly indecisive phase.
Continue reading “Market Corrosion and the Catalyst of COVID-19”On Thriving: Overstating the State of the Union
If you’ve pretty much tuned out political spectacles, you may have missed the president’s State of the Union speech and his latest economic pronouncement: “Jobs are booming, incomes are soaring, poverty is plummeting, crime is falling, confidence is surging, and our country is thriving and highly respected again.”
Continue reading “On Thriving: Overstating the State of the Union”Technocracy: Will What We Love Ruin Us?
Two dystopian novelists, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (published in 1932) and George Orwell’s 1984 (published 17 years later in 1949), rocked the West by challenging foundational suppositions that are the bedrock of America’s liberal democracy. It was with some relief that 1984 came and went without an Orwellian nightmare. Fears that we would be overcome by externally imposed oppression, that books and printed media would be banned and we would be deprived of information and, ultimately, the truth, never manifested themselves.
Continue reading “Technocracy: Will What We Love Ruin Us?”Could It Be That a Minsky “Moment” Lurks in the Shadows?
Our previous post, “Risky Business,” warned that the global and domestic issuance of low-grade, corporate-debt obligations have become extreme and could be seriously destabilizing at the end of this cycle. This is not an unacknowledged risk, but the situation’s particulars—those that ought to be most concerning—do not always make the headlines.
Continue reading “Could It Be That a Minsky “Moment” Lurks in the Shadows?”Risky Business
Imperviously shielded by the S&P 500’s presumably impermeable umbrella, most investors appear blissfully oblivious of threatening storm clouds billowing up on the horizon. The collective consciousness has a vested interest in perpetually sunny skies. Consequently, its myopia is dangerously out of touch with the vicissitudes of weather, or for that matter, business cycles.
Continue reading “Risky Business”