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Given the fact that I have just finished writing two articles on Wien’s predictions for 2010, I thought it relevant to look back at the last three years of Wien’s surprises to just before the housing crisis.  I posted the 2009 predictions last year. The post is here.  Wien calls these events that he gives [...]

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The last I had heard about a prospective Gulf currency union came yesterday morning in a note by Marc Chandler who is the Chief Strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman’s FX group.  He indicated that he was more optimistic about a Gulf currency union on the than a Latin American one on the eve of a [...]

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This is probably my fourth post on the tangled web woven by securitization, which puts a considerable distance between home owners and mortgagees which own a mortgage.  The issue is causing huge problems in bankruptcy and foreclosure in courts around the U.S. 
This morning, Gretchen Morgenson has another good piece out describing how a judge [...]

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We are starting to get a sense of who the winners and losers of the Great Unraveling are. Spain is definitely a loser.
Just think, a few years ago Spain was the envy of Western Europe with a dynamic and booming property market and prodigious GDP growth. The country was THE holiday-maker’s paradise, with many buying [...]

The Chief Economist of Goldman Sachs sat down with the FT’s David Oakley and had a go on a number of topics from the financial crisis, investments in Emerging Markets, the future of the Bric (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies, to the global economy.

Below are links to the three-part video series on the FT website. I think the videos are well worth watching.

Enjoy.

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Yesterday, I made the case for us to be less concerned about the U.S. and even Western Europe, but to be very concerned about a slowdown in Asia. The reasons for this are simple: most analysts now understand the extent of problems in the U.S. and Western Europe.
This, is part of the reason [...]

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Ingrid Betancourt and other hostages are free. From the Wall Street Journal.
How ‘Operation Check-Mate’ WorkedBy DAVID LUHNOW and JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBAJuly 3, 2008
Here’s how “Operation Check-Mate” worked. Details of the rescue mission are from Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s defense minister, and Ingrid Betancourt, one of the freed hostages.
Colombia’s army, having infiltrated the FARC’s highest [...]

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The FT reported today that Brazil, fattened by newly found oil reserves and a sky-high oil price, is getting into the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) game. They are ready to fund $200 billion toward this project and have built up the currency reserves to begin making that move.
To date, most SWFs have been in [...]