vboring

Bernanke Brushes Aside Inflation, Focuses on Growth

how can there be a 90% chance of a .25 cut and a 20% chance of a .5 cut?

Recession? I've Got a Solution

three things:

"afflicted", not "inflicted"

i'm with you on the diagnosis and the domestic energy production idea as a solution. low interest rates will be an incredible boon for large capital projects like new energy construction.

but coal to fuel has fundamental energy problems. energy problems don't just go away with thing like miniaturization of chips or evolution of materials (the way that cell phones and cars got better). energy problems deal much closer to the edges of the laws of physics. so, the coal-to-liquids technology today is probably about 90% as good as it will ever be in terms of coal-to-liquid conversion efficiency (and thus CO2/gallon of fuel produced).

i like non-silicon solar, breeder-reactor nukes, tree-crop biofuels, and PHEVs as domestic energy solutions.

The Rally is Coming: Always Buy Too Soon

another perspective on my point above is that the Fed and the federal government are doing everything in their power to prop up the market, tripping over each other with idiotic bailout plans, debt and currency be damned.

if the Fed and the federal government are on one team, do you really want to be on the other? they control the printing presses. how can you win against that?

The Rally is Coming: Always Buy Too Soon

it should be remembered that there have been decades when the markets didn't actually always go up.

during the 1970-1980, the Dow Jones returned an astounding 0%. Nominal!

yes, the markets have trended up fairly smoothly since Nixon took us off the gold standard, but to blindly assume that they will just keep going up is just a bad foundation for an analysis.

Bernanke Isn’t Finished Cutting - By a Longshot

if they could just throw that whole "dual responsibility" thing out the window, we'd all be great, right?

just push the reserve rate to 0% and watch the economy perpetually blossom, just like it has been in Japan for 20 years now.

jackass.

some of us work for a living and get paid with these increasingly worthless dollars.

Greenspan's Latest: Oil Boom Will Likely 'Go on Forever'

forever may be a long time, but energy is wealth and oil is cheap transportable energy and these facts are unlikely to change soon.

we have no acceptable replacements for oil at any price today, yet all of the world's economies are utterly dependent on oil.

sure, we can produce a little $200/barrel biodiesel for greenwashing purposes, but there is absolutely no way that we can produce enough to run an economy. there just isn't enough land or fresh water to do it at any price.

we don't have half of the electric infrastructure necessary to switch to a fully electric economy. and the infrastructure we do have is rapidly approaching the ugly end of the bathtub curve.

with energy, we can do anything. without it, our economy cannot exist. that is why energy is wealth. we have no replacement for oil, not even in theory.

forever is a long time and the price, by definition, cannot go up forever since we will eventually run out.

but, for as long as the world's economy expands, oil will keep getting more expensive

Fed Cuts to 3%

yeah, funny thing about this rate cut: it prompted a general market jump, but it also prompted a jump in the price of GLD

Fed Cuts to 3%

the Fed cuts rates by 1.25% in a little over a week and the market finds this encouraging?

sounds more like a good reason for concern to me.

unprecedented actions seem to more often lead to failure than to success.

Oh, Chicken Little: World Markets Aren’t Falling Apart

huge leverage on depreciating assets spells trouble. specifically, deflationary trouble as trillions of dollars disappear from both homeowners minds and banks' spreadsheets.

maybe the sky isn't falling, but at least one household name bank could.

The Fear Is Palpable. Time To Buy.

inning 1 just finished. now is a time to wait.

continually falling house prices represent a contraction of credit.

much of the economic growth for the last few years was directly from the housing and condo construction industry. these industries have slowed, but are still building faster than demand is increasing, so more jobs will be lost here.

domestic autos will continue to slide as tighter credit makes them harder to buy and fuel efficiency concerns will make them less desirable.

this will be a full blown recession, with increased company failures, higher unemployment rates, and truly excellent buying opportunities in the emerging market and renewable energy areas.

Interpret a Stagnant VIX As You Will

stagnant, yes. but also quite high.

people are clearly worried, but willing to hold tight to see whether or not the next shoe drops.

Jatropha Being Developed as a New Biodiesel Source

this is a boring story until it includes economic analysis of harvesting and processing costs and the risks of movement towards an electric transportation scheme using a mix of renewable electric energy sources.

essentially, why would i grow trees, harvest and process the nuts, transport the oil across the country, just to burn it in an inefficient internal combustion engine?

wouldn't it make more sense to increase the production of renewable energy nationwide and use this to charge batteries or fuel cells or ultracapacitors or who-knows-what?

Pedaling Prosperity Propaganda: Rhetoric of Depression?

duct tape, not duck tape

Bill Gross: U.S. Already in Recession

lower interest rates lead to higher inflation which leads to higher housing interest rate premiums which leads to deeper housing problems which leads to deeper consumer problems.