Consilient Investor > Market Commentary
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| Macro Musings: Tres Mujeres 2007-11-07 – Justice Litle Like Blanche Dubois, the United States is all too dependent on the fiscal kindness of strangers—much as Argentina was prior to the economic collapse of 2002. |
Macro Musings: Northern Exposure 2007-09-27 – Justice Litle Some believe the dollar can't collapse… that it just wouldn't be rational. The central bankers of the world are too level-headed to dump their holdings en masse. Question, then—since when are bank runs rational? Would a currency run be so different? |
| Macro Musings: Milestones 2007-09-12 - Justice Litle In due time, the inexorable logic of the Austrian Endgame means at least one thing. Gold's one-time $700 ceiling will ultimately be transformed into a floor... and, eventually, a memory. |
Macro Musings: Time to Buy Gold Stocks 2007-08-15 - Justice Litle Gold stocks could put in a triple or quadruple from current levels (over the course of months to years), and it isn't clear when the move will begin in earnest. Given that it could be sooner rather than later, it looks like time to buy... |
| Macro Musings: Make Way For the Sovereigns 2007-08-01 - Justice Litle Sovereign Wealth Funds, or SWFs for short, are essentially state-owned and state-controlled investment vehicles. They are the blue whales of global finance; in terms of sheer size, Sovereign Wealth Funds are the biggest animals on the planet. |
Macro Musings: Murky Water 2007-07-18 - Justice Litle Theoretically, there are no sovereign laws governing the private security contractor. He (and it is almost always a 'he') exists in a sort of legal limbo. A country in chaos is not about to apply its rules to a heavily-armed foreign national... |
| Macro Musings: Lord of the Rates 2007-07-04 - Justice Litle It's neither love nor money that makes the business world go round, but credit. Easy credit lets you multiply the dollars you already have in your pocket; this neat trick allows for all sorts of other neat tricks. |
Macro Musings: Metamorphosis 2007-06-19 - Justice Litle In Franz Kafka's 1915 short story, "Metamorphosis," Gregor Samsa finds himself radically transformed overnight. There are many interpretations of this famous work; most of them focus on feelings of alienation and loneliness. Rarely is the tale applied to Wall Street... |
| Macro Musings: The Dogs of War 2007-06-04 - Justice Litle It is a given that wars are expensive, draining, and distracting -- and that weakness attracts predators. This is why conflict tends to beget more conflict, like hyenas surrounding a wounded wildebeest. But where do motives of self-defense end and motives of hostile aggression begin? |
Macro Musings: Persian Peculiars 2007-05-28 - Justice Litle Markets are less like checkers and more like chess. It isn't always clear whether a specific move is an excellent one, or a terrible one. Subtle differences can lead to unexpected outcomes. This week Macro Musings looks to the Middle East, highlighting two examples of how this is so. |
| Macro Musings: Hair of the Dog 2007-05-21 - Justice Litle The Chrysler-Cerberus deal is fascinating because it encompasses so many trends: the rise of hedge funds and private equity firms; the twilight of America's unions in an era of globalization; and, last but not least, the awesome reach of cheap money. |
Macro Musings: Inflated Expectations 2007-05-11 - Justice Litle History doesn't repeat, as Mark Twain once noted, but it rhymes. Markets tend to over-react; investors tend to get over-excited; governments tend to over-extend and over-spend. This has been true for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. |
| Macro Musings: Drunken Dictators 2007-05-04 - Justice Litle Recent actions of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's power-drunk President, show that oil revenues can be more intoxicating than hard whiskey. Just as a fifth of Wild Turkey can severely impair one's judgment, a spigot of cash can make any two-bit dictator feel invincible. |
Macro Musings: Selling Low and Buying High 2007-04-27 - Justice Litle By deciding to dump gold at the worst possible time, Gordon "goldfinger" Brown has shown us how spectacularly stupid governments can be when it comes to selling low. When push comes to shove, we may find that governments are equally spectacular at buying high. |
| Macro Musings: God Save the Queen (from inflation) 2007-04-20 - Justice Litle Some are deeply worried about inflationary trends across the pond, even as the Pound gives its strongest showing in years. Meanwhile, via rising equity prices and a falling dollar, America pursues a "Zimbabwe lite" policy. |
Macro Musings: De-Synchronicity 2007-04-13 - Justice Litle The global economy, we were told, was like a jumbo jet with three stalled engines. The fourth engine--a booming US economy--was the only thing keeping it in flight. Now the question must be asked: can the global economy fly on if the American consumer sputters out? |
| Macro Musings: The Heat is On 2007-04-06 - Justice Litle It's the $64 trillion question. Is global warming for real, or just a load of hot air? There is enough hot air--on both sides of the debate--to fuel dueling Goodyear Blimps. Either way, the law of the land is now green. |
Macro Musings: No Cheap Thrill 2007-03-30 - Justice Litle Here is the dilemma. Should the United States fold its hand against Iran, and admit that military action is not in the cards? Or should Uncle Sam follow through with a dramatic reraise, and threaten to commit the mullahs for all their chips? |
| Macro Musings: Carry On 2007-03-16 - Justice Litle They say that risk is the mother's milk of capitalism. If true, that makes the Bank of Japan a prize dairy cow of sorts. The yen has been the funding source for many a leveraged bet these past few years... |
Macro Musings: Jumping the Shark 2007-03-23 - Justice Litle When a once-popular TV show becomes a strained parody of itself, it is said to have "jumped the shark." This week, Macro Musings examines a handful of big picture themes where the proverbial shark has been jumped. |
| Macro Musings: Pain Spotting 2007-03-09 - Justice Litle The hobby known as "train spotting" dates back to nineteenth century England, when a speculative railroad boom overwhelmed the country. At the height of the mania in 1845, there were three journals and more than sixteen newspapers devoted to the railroad trade. |
Macro Musings: Shanghai Surprise 2007-03-02 - Justice Litle Shanghai Surprise was originally a 1986 box office bomb starring Madonna and Sean Penn. In case you missed it, the movie was billed as "a romantic adventure for the dangerous at heart." More recently, a "Shanghai Surprise" is exactly what the markets got on February 27th, 2007... |
| Macro Musings: Inaugural Edition 2007-02-23 - Justice Litle Welcome to the inaugural edition of Macro Musings, a slightly irreverent commentary on the state of the markets and the world at large.... |
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