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Insanity n. Mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior. (See here.) The above is a legal definition as distinguished from the popular quote (misattributed to Albert Einstein), “Insanity is doing the same thing [...] Fewer babies born per capita are pushing the U.S. toward zero population growth. This began happening in Japan around the time it moved from an era of rising prices to one of price stability or very mild deflation, despite repeated “quantitative easing” by the Bank of Japan. Bloomberg reports (LINK): Recession Left Baby Bust as [...] Periodically the blogosphere, as well as some of the MSM and academia, raise the question of how Japan’s government is going to avoid insolvency. Federal debt exceeds 200% of GDP and continues to rise. Until now, the solution has been for interest rates to decline, thus allowing interest costs to stay relatively stable. The bogeyman [...] Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, it’s enemy action. —Auric Goldfinger, quote from Goldfinger (1959) Leaving aside Vallejo’s bankruptcy of a while ago, municipal bond investors have been hit with a rat a tat tat of three California municipal bankruptcies in short order. Stockton, Mammoth Lakes, then San Bernardino. [...] What did you think the odds were of seeing this headline when Japan was here buying up Rockefeller Center back in 1990: “In a Shift, Chinese Capital Flows to Japanese Firms.” In late ’80s and early ’90s the Japanese were here buying large real estate projects such as Rockefeller Center and the Pebble Beach golf [...] S&P just put out a warning on Japanese banks holding Japan sovereign bonds (JGBs) because of the risk of Japan having a current account deficit: Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services does not expect Japan to see a current account deficit in the next two to three years. However, if the yen rises further against other major [...] Just as happened after WW II and for many years, the U.S. banking system is ramping up its holdings of Treasurys. Bloomberg reports: U.S. banks bought more government and related debt in the first two months of 2012 than they did in all of last year, an endorsement of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s [...] I awoke on Black Friday to find one of the news reports on the Web headlining that the trend is now “extreme couponing”. This struck me as evidence of hard times, implying excess productive capacity relative to people’s available funds, so in the spirit of the holidays, I realized that it’s getting to feel like [...] I wish to put a little perspective on the issues hysteria surrounding so-called “rare earths.” The news media were abuzz about the announcement from Japan that rare earths were found on the seabed. Plentiful there, we are told. In fact, rare earths aren’t rare. Rare earths are relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust, but discovered minable concentrations are [...] The TIC (Treasury International Capital) transaction report came out today. It is something I follow mildly, because I don’t think holders of U.S. dollars have much of a choice other than to buy U.S. debt or U.S. goods with their dollars. But here is the report: Net buying of long-term equities, notes and bonds totaled [...] |
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