Zero Population Growth was a fashionable cause in the 1970’s, continuing as an issue on the fringe of public life in the 2000’s, with one key ZPG Web site now devoted to haranguing Congress and the media about the necessity for worldwide abortion and contraception rights.

French peasants and Indian housewives have traditionally avoided stocks, bonds and even bank deposits in their investment portfolio, preferring instead to put their faith in gold, whether in bars, coins or jewelry. Every now and then, usually when the world economy is going through a difficult phase, there comes a time when the French peasants […]

At the Asian Development Bank meeting in Hawaii last week, Standard and Poor’s, the rating agency, claimed that while 2000 had been the worst year ever for defaults on S&P rated bonds, 2001 was expected to be even worse, with the Asian corporate sector a major component of the problem.

The stock market has been rising for two solid weeks. First-quarter GDP, reported Friday, far from falling into recession was reported at up 2.0 percent. Consumer spending, reported Monday, continues to rise, and the savings rate has even become marginally less negative–up to minus 0.8 percent.

As a Bear, I much enjoyed the period in the early ’80s when the two top economists on Wall Street, Henry Kaufman of Salomon and Albert Wojnilower of First Boston, were known as Dr. Doom and Dr. Death. Their writings, like those of James Grant (“Grant’s Interest Rate Letter”) more recently, are a refreshing contrast […]

The United States House of Representatives last week passed a bill repealing the estate tax, but with repeal staged over the next 10 years. The Senate appears unlikely to follow the House’s lead, preferring only to raise the threshold above which estate tax becomes payable, while leaving its rate on large estates, of over $20 […]

As the 24 United States airmen patiently await their release from Chinese custody, there is another hostage that is going to vault up the world’s priority list if U.S.-China relations continue to deteriorate: the $350 billion of foreign investment in China.

Technology stocks have had the stuffing knocked out of them, earnings warnings are appearing in sector after sector, and even the Dow is hovering close to a bear market.

The dot-com crash has been widely written up, and everybody agrees that we were all foolish to have invested in companies with no track record and no operations. But the euphoria of 1999-2000 may yet leave us with bigger casualties than mere dot-coms.

European commentators have revealed a certain degree of smugness in the last few months. Yes, the United States will have a recession, they say (they are, unsurprisingly, more willing to admit this than U.S. commentators) but it won’t affect us here in Europe.