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It has been a constant theme of this newsletter, almost since the nadir of the Great Panic of 2007--2009, that although financial companies both precipitated and were devastated by that crisis, nonfinancial companies hunkered down, slashed their costs (hence 10% unemployment), and stockpiled cash flow as never before....keep reading

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It's been the position of this newsletter for at least two and a half years that the American economy (and, indeed, that of the world) was sustainably stronger than most observers -- and all journalism -- were giving it credit for. I was particularly scornful of the chimerical "jobless recovery," which, during its brief and essentially silly season, was used to gainsay the clear economic upturn which was under way....keep reading

A great chorus of uninformed handwringing has been going on in the Republic lo these last couple of years, as the government's absurdly-calculated "savings rate" drifted down to, and is now below, zero....keep reading

MotherRock, one of the largest ($430 million as of last May) hedge funds trading natural gas futures, shut down after suffering huge losses in June and July....keep reading

1. I suppose I picked up Patricia Beard's Blue Blood and Mutiny: The Fight for the ...
2. Though neither particularly well-written nor particularly well-edited, Charles...
3. It has been a constant theme of this newsletter that the supply of, demand for, ...

"The U.S. economy, according to doubters, rests on an unsustainable accumulation of foreign debt....keep reading

(1) The Great Meltup of 2008? Suppose -- just suppose -- that the economic stresses and strains of the past year or so are beginning (with a great deal of help from the monetary authorities, and with a blast of fiscal stimulus which will almost surely come too late) to work themselves out....keep reading

JP Morgan Private Bank's always interesting Michael Cembalest synopsized on November 4 a presentation he'd recently made to clients, in which he identified a list of classic signals--"the usual suspects"--which, taken together, normally indicate higher asset prices....keep reading

Save the date: 11/11/11...keep reading

As this is written, just after Father's Day, the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500 are probing their panic lows of last September. I think we may assert unequivocally that these lows will either hold or they won't....keep reading

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"The plight of Europe is such that, whenever I have the chance to talk to young people now, at any age from 12 to 20, I...keep reading

1. I used to get a lot of inquiries about how to value practices for purchase, sale or ...
2. It's always a good idea -- never more than in the current climate of hysteria -- to ...

"(I)f the past is any gauge of the future, the actual performance of markets will be determined by the direction of fiscal and monetary policy. During the past five years the Fed has taken the U.S. on a roller coaster, tightening too much in 2000, easing too much over 2001 to 2003, and now tightening again. This is a thrill ride we did not need to take. Even today, with gold over $540 an ounce, it is not clear that price stability has returned....keep reading

"Despite all the predictions of impending catastrophic shortages, the world still possesses immense oil reserves. 'Proven' reserves alone, more than 1.1 trillion barrels, could fuel the world economy for 38 years even at current rates of consumption....keep reading

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(The bullet points that follow, documenting the American economy's inexplicable failure to implode yet again in 2003, are adapted from an article by Irwin Stelzer, director of economic policy at the Hudson Institute. The full essay appeared in The Times of London on December 29, 2003.)...keep reading