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The December 2008 issue of this newsletter will be the last one which is printed and mailed, in addition to being posted online. Beginning in January of next year, only the electronic version will be available for download....keep reading

1. The mind-numbingly stupid idea that the United States is replicating Japan's ...
2. Peter Ferrara's op-ed piece in the February 11 WSJ, "Reaganomics vs. ...
3. Perhaps I overdo this 1940s thing of mine, but I can't resist recommending ...
4. This month marks the 20th anniversary of one of the greatest events in ...

And so we learn, from the Fed's latest (3Q10) flow of funds report, that the cash position of nonfinancial companies--at just under $2 trillion--has, as a percentage of their total assets, risen to a level it has not reached in half a century....keep reading

In the interest of full disclosure, let me begin this little meditation with the fact that Warren Buffett currently manages - at prices around $90,000 for Berkshire Hathaway "A" shares - about three quarters of a million dollars of The Nick Murray Company's pension plan. And I, for one, think he's doing a heck of a job. But that's not my point....keep reading

John F. Kennedy...keep reading

Bradbury...keep reading

"The large position size required to extract reasonable returns out of relative value trades can also cause a number of problems. First, as was made clear with LTCM, these positions are very hard to liquidate, and the newer, less liquid markets are usually the ones that exhibit the spread discrepancies....keep reading

1. I picked up with no little trepidation Michael Lewis's compilation of essays, op-...
2. I mentioned last month that I'd say something to you in this issue about Vaclav ...
3. I should think every American would want to read Linda Robinson's Tell Me ...

Resources...keep reading

President Harry Truman always said that what he needed most was a one-handed economist, so that that person would be literally incapable of giving him an economic forecast and then saying, "On the other hand…"...keep reading

We are hourly inundated with the most dire reminders of how overleveraged government at all levels is, how much bad debt is still on the books of the banking system, and even how the consumer is still in relatively high levels of debt, even after deleveraging sharply (and saving like mad) over the last year or so....keep reading

William F. Buckley, Jr., Robert Bryce...keep reading

Squibs...keep reading

Ask Nick...keep reading

1. Not surprisingly, I loved Nansen Saleri's March 4 WSJ op-ed piece, 'The World ...
2. Three Fed speeches/testimony in March worth a look: Mishkin on 'Outlook and ...
3. An extremely powerful debunking of 'The Inequality Myth' is to be found in ...
4. The Teaching Company is out with a third edition of Professor Tim Taylor's ...

1. By far the most important book you're going to read all year has just been ...
2. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway annual reports are always worth reading, but I ...

Oil prices reached a high of $40.42 a barrel (and stock prices made their low) in October of 1990, as the buildup to Operation Desert Storm proceeded apace. Within a two-day period at the start of actual combat operations, oil prices fell nearly 40%....keep reading

As recently as the fourth quarter of 2003, the media were obsessed with one apocalyptic idea: the "jobless recovery." This "crisis" had replaced the one that had been running until six months earlier, which was, of course, no recovery at all....keep reading

I'm very gratified -- and most grateful, which isn't the same thing at all -- to acknowledge the significant volume of responses to my rant in last month's issue ("The Format Saga, Part Deux")....keep reading

The Fed's 3Q06 flow of funds report, released on December 7th, was a thing of beauty, and a joy forever…or at least until the next one comes out, because it'll be even better....keep reading