This morning Chris Whalen made some comments on CNBC that hit the nail on the head regarding the U.S. banking crisis: there is a huge wave of old-fashioned loan losses coming down the pike. The writedowns we have seen to date are largely confined to tradeable securities that must be marked to market.
There [...]

At the end of July, I wrote a post of my top ten predictions for the remainder of the year. A third of the way into things, my predictions are looking pretty good…so far. I said:

Oil prices will dip below $100 before year-end.
Inflation will fall globally.
The Fed will lower rates.
A major financial institution [...]

As you could probably tell — from all the stories I have been writing about the Baltics, Denmark, Sweden, you name it — I believe that Europe is the next leg down in the global housing bubble. As such, it will pay to focus as much attention on events outside the US, where the [...]

Not every financial services sector company is a basket case destined for bankruptcy. There are many well-run lower risk organizations in the bunch. Moreover, let’s not blame the banking model for individual companies’ woes. The Economist had a good article this weekend highlighting the fact that it is not the universal banking model which [...]

With 2008 now half over, it’s obvious that the global economy has lurched to the downside. While many have remained unrealistically optimistic about the workout of the present credit crisis, downside risks have been the determining factors in keeping things soft.
Where are we headed?
I’d like to answer that question with my top ten predictions [...]

I have uploaded the associated PDF for this teleconference. Click here for PDF.
U.S. Global Investors Exclusive Webcast: Where is the Boom and the Doom?
SAN ANTONIO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–U.S. Global Investors (NASDAQ:GROW), a boutique investment adviser specializing in natural resources and emerging markets, will host a webcast titled, “Where is the Boom and the Doom?” on Friday, [...]

It has been my assertion for some time that writedowns and the attendant unraveling of the financial system is the most troubling problem during this credit crisis. This process is deflationary by its very nature because credit contracts. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at the Telegraph has written a great article highlighting just this fact. [...]

Spain is perhaps the next domino in the global credit bubble to fall. The UK economy is slowing as well, but the pace of slowing in Spain is truly remarkable.
According to Spanish-language news reports I have seen today (see Round-up), Spain is being hit with a housing bust that has led to increasing unemployment [...]

I have been in Europe for a while and am back at blogging after a two-week hiatus. This morning I was listening to “Wake Up To Money,” a British finance show that one can hear via podcast. The gist of the discussion was that the UK economy is slowing markedly with consumers really [...]

This blog entry is an updated version of something I wrote way back in 2004. I wrote 90% of this 4 years ago when housing prices were much lower. The fact that I can re-publish this today, largely unchanged, demonstrates how the housing bubble has morphed into a giant of grotesque proportions.
The global [...]