Credit Writedowns

Intense conflicts over water will probably not be confined to the developing world. So far, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado have been able to make and keep agreements defining who gets how much of the Colorado River’s water. But if populations continue to grow while the snowcap recedes, it’s likely that the first shots will be fired before long, in US courtrooms. If legal remedies fail… a war between Phoenix and LA might seem far-fetched, but at the minimum some serious upheaval will eventually ensue unless an alternative is found quickly.

Editor’s note: the price plateaus mentioned in this article are all in nominal terms. When using inflation-adjusted prices, prices have still risen dramatically, though less dramatically. By Marin Katusa, Chief Energy Investment Strategist Between October 1973 and March 1974, the price of oil shot sky-high. OPEC embargoed its output, and prices spiked from $3 a barrel to $12 – a [...]

Editor’s note: As controversial as the subject of peak oil is, the comments about global warming and other environmental problems are equally controversial. This site does not subscribe to the view that global warming concern is overblown or that technology ‘”will save us” from man’s overuse of finite natural resources without serious ill effects on many populations due to cost [...]

Scarcity is a powerful force and it leaves those in control of limited resources wielding great power. We think a scarcity of uranium will increase Russia’s power; control over some of the last big, easy oil deposits has earned Saudi Arabia great global influence. Petronas’ deal with Progress is a sign that shale gas could generate similar prowess for North America, and is a strong reminder that the global race for resources will provide some with money and power while leaving others in the dust.

One of oil’s most important characteristics is its fungibility, which means that a barrel of refined oil from Texas is equivalent to one from Saudi Arabia or Nigeria or anywhere else in the world. The global oil machine is built upon this premise – tankers take oil wherever it is needed, and one country pays almost the same as the next for this valuable commodity.

Well, that’s true aside from two factors that can render this equivalency void. In fact, crude oil prices range a fair bit according to the quality of the crude and the challenge of moving it from wellhead to refinery. Those factors are currently wreaking havoc on oil prices in North America: a range of oil qualities and a raft of infrastructure issues are creating record price differentials. And with no solution in sight, we think those differentials are here to stay.

In less than a week’s time, the Facebook IPO has gone from the most-hyped technology event since Google went public into “blame-storming” mode. Details concerning the stock’s sudden drop, the market’s inability to process orders, and the (mis)behavior of insiders are starting to emerge. And it doesn’t look good.

Graphite has been getting a lot of buzz recently, raising bullish expectations among some investors and even talk of a future bubble. Why? The price has risen steadily over the past couple of years and attracted a lot of attention. Let’s have a look at why some market participants are excited about this mineral and see if it’s worth our investment dollars.

“What made Instagram worth $1 billion to Facebook?”

When asked this question recently, I responded with an immediate, “Nothing.”

I’m not usually so terse or emphatic with my answers, as any longtime reader knows. But in this case, there really was nothing inherently valuable inside Instagram that made them worth the unbelievable sum Facebook agreed to pay. Yet they did it anyway. Clearly, there’s something missing from a traditional valuation analysis here.

In an interview with Louis James, the inimitable Doug Casey throws cold water on those celebrating the economic recovery.

The average interest rate for a savings account today is 0.45%. It wasn’t that long ago that one could easily earn 5% in a well-chosen savings account, like those offered by ING Direct, or bump that up by a point or two by putting money away in a CD. Thanks to the largesse of our Federal Reserve and the antics of bankers around the country and world, those days are over, probably for a very long time. Interest rates are at an all-time low, and they look poised to stay there for a while. It’s just about impossible for a saver to find the kind of yield that will beat inflation, let alone be enough to provide an income one can live on. So there is a new idea but is based on the familiar technologies of the Internet; it’s known as peer-to-peer (P2P) lending.

One conclusion from the Fed’s actions is that it doesn’t care as much about its inflation target as it does about improving the unemployment rate. Thus, it will err on the side of letting inflation rise, if it would improve unemployment. But holding rates too low too long fueled the housing bubble. Repeating the same game will have consequences of malinvestment in the form of new bubbles in the economy. The Fed hopes to restore employment before the negative consequences of loose monetary policy show up.

It could just be saber rattling during an election year, but Western powers have been provoking Iran for years now – two decades, really. I just saw another report proclaiming that Iran is likely to attack the US, which is about as absurd as the allegations Bush made about Iraq bombing the US, when he fomented that invasion. It’s starting to look rather serious at this point, so I do think the odds favor actual fighting in the not-too-distant future.