“The lights are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime” famously intoned British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey in the gathering dusk of August 4 1914 (there is now a fair consensus that Grey’s alliance with France and encirclement of Germany bore much of the responsibility for […]

In ancient Chinese mythology, dragons live in the center of the earth, and when they awaken and shake their tails, earthquakes result. The Chinese economic dragon has very clearly awakened; dealing with the lashings of its tail will be no mean feat.

They don’t ring a bell at the top of a bull market, goes the popular aphorism. Well, last week the U.S. stock market broke decisively through its 2005 lows and my advice to those with long positions is: seek not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee!

As Britain heads into a General Election May 5, the question naturally arises for supporters of the “Bear’s Lair” free market, sound economy approach: do we want the Tories (Britain’s “Conservative Party”) to win this time? It’s a surprisingly close call.

As education policies in Britain, the United States and elsewhere focus attention and resources increasingly on “graduating” the lower half of the intellectual Bell Curve the private sector has produced a response that benefits its top quartile. The International Baccalaureate is increasingly becoming an international “Gold Standard” of education for the cognitive elite.

As the Fed raises interest rates quarter point by quarter point, the financial environment may seem to be changing little, but in reality it is becoming increasingly at risk of singularities, financial tornadoes that appear from a clear sky and produce economic devastation.

If Paul Wolfowitz survives the inevitable sniping from Europeans to emerge as President of the World Bank, he will at least represent a different approach from outgoing president James Wolfensohn. It’s about time!

Japan bans U.S. beef. The United States bans Canadian beef. The EU subsidizes aircraft production. South Korea places multiple tariff barriers against automobile imports. The United States, the EU and Japan spend billions of dollars a year on farm subsidies, mostly paid to wealthy and corporate farmers. All these market distortions reduce output and trade, […]

“Thank you, Mr. Chamberlain,” caroled the musical British after prime minister Neville Chamberlain returned from signing the 1938 Munich Agreement. This week, as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress that Social Security and Medicare reform required cutting, not expanding, those out-of-control programs, one is tempted to echo their song. Hopefully with more long term […]

For anyone who DOESN’T think the stock and bond markets are currently hopelessly distorted, I recommend taking a long cold look at the hedge fund industry. It is a sobering spectacle.