Financial Vagabond

Foreigners buying US Dollars? I’m attempting to put a couple puzzle pieces together so here goes… 1) China has tons of US dollar and dollar denominated debt.  Additionally I heard suspictions that China may be purchasing land, companies, etc… with the debt.  Considering that we have no real access to their books, and they can [...]

Some See China’s Buying Spree on Commodities as Short-Lived – NYTimes.com. With the advent of Central Banks printing their way out of this mess the probabilities continue to point toward inflation.  While the rate of expansion of the money supply has lessened it is no less continuing to rise.  Should the Fed decide to sell [...]

The Worlds Biggest Debtor Nations – Slideshows – CNBC.com.   This is fun… you may even be surprised to learn that the US isn’t the nation with the largest Debt/GDP ratio. Sphere: Related Content

Bonds, bonds, bonds…  United States Government bonds ARE the safest investment in the world besides cash.  Right?  They are aren’t they?  I mean they are backed by the taxing power of the United States Government so they have to be.  Well, sure you will get your money back at a measly 2.x% these days.  Isn’t [...]

Hold your hats folks as here are some of the forecasts for 2009 (link): GDP falling by 2.2% Slow recovery in 2010 > 9% unemployment by 2010 Decline in inflation (hmmmm… if monetary policy says anything this will reverse or at least eventually destroy the dollar) Continued decline in housing prices Decline in real consumption [...]

Christmas is past, New Years on the horizon, hope for change lingers in the air like a slow moving mist.  2008 will go down in the history books.  Oh it was memorable, but like a lemon is bitter.  Collapse oh what collapse the economy is fine.  Bush reassured us that the fundamental of the economy [...]

Will someone please explain why those who take undue risks get the most support? I’m not behind on my mortgage payment, I pay my bills on time yet I’m not getting any governmental support. Troubled Homeowners: article To qualify, borrowers would have to be at least three months behind on their home loans and would [...]

  As I write this the Nikkei is down 580.52 points to 7,880.36.  All of Asia is down across the board.  A sea of red you might say.  It will be interesting to see what happens with the European markets once they open.  I imagine if Asia is down so will be Europe.  None of [...]

The theory was beautiful (well in the abstract)… Give troubled banks more credit and they will lend it out and the economy will stop its free-fall.  Now, that sounds like utopia to me.  Create credit and we will all be saved for unemployement, slowing production, decreased consumer spending, and rising interest rates. HOLD ON… let’s [...]

It seems that the tune to march to these days is credit o credit we need more credit.  Somehow somewhere we forgot quite quickly that credit got us into this mess.  If credit is expanding much faster than real economic growth the outcome will be instability in the economy.  That is like an individual taking [...]