3 November 2009

The power grab at the Federal Reserve is a topic I first broached back in February when the Federal Reserve was creating its alphabet soup of liquidity programs to pull us back from the brink of financial disaster. I was troubled about Fed…

When I read Ed’s recent piece “Japan: stimulus without reform leads to a policy cul de sac,” I couldn’t help but think he is wrong about Japan. Supporting aggregate demand The problem is taxes. In Japan, taxes are too high relative to the…

The sale to Canadian auto parts maker Magna International and its partner, Russian lender Sberbank is off. With bankruptcy now behind it, General Motors now feels confident it can proceed with Opel under the GM umbrella. From the GM press…

I had a feeling there was an energy component to the Berkshire Hathaway decision to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe. And now comes the evidence via coal, a major freight on BNSF’s tracks. But, there is a lot more to this acquisition than…

Nils Pratley’s piece at the Guardian on RBS and Lloyds is very good.  Two quotes sum up the situation quite well. First,regarding Lloyds, Pratley says: Royal Bank of Scotland's shares down almost 20% in two days; Lloyds's shares…

Marshall Auerback here. You saw Ed’s last post on China, quoting from Peter Tasker, one of the top analysts in Japan when I lived there. I take Peter’s insights very seriously. His analysis implies something a lot moreregarding currencies,…

This article by Peter Tasker, a well-regarded financial analyst in Asia, comes via the Financial Times (hat tip Marshall). He sees an enormous bubble forming in China – and parallels to Japan circa 1987: Emerging markets, it seems, have…

I will be on Canada’s BNN TV at noonish talking about finance: Banks and Buffett. It will be a casual discussion with the moderators Howard Green and Andrea Mandel-Campbell and one other guest, Brian Milner of the Globe & Mail. Below…

Christopher Wood, the well-noted market strategist at CLSA and writer of the classic Japan crash warning book “The Bubble Economy,” is now warning of a market correction in the West.  According to CNBC India, Wood believes that the…

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has been making some very significant moves of late.  Selling of Moody’s shares is one.  But, the latest is sure to cause a stir amongst Buffett watchers because he is definitely making some…