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Another Crisis Looms Right Around the Corner

The utter pessimism of the article and many of the comments is the most striking to an outsider.
What a contrast with the general tenor of economic expectations and comment on the opinion pages of Indian, Brazilian and Chinese media web sites. Optimism is also infectious!

Much of the American (and European) pessimism is self fulfilling and the biggest worry for the future is the political anger and the inevitable call for a "strongman".

History rhymes.

China Counterattacks With a 'Buy China' Policy

Completely agree with the author. Protectionism is self-defeating.

What Does ETF Money Flow Tell Us About Gold?

The AAA (or less) rating refers to the risk of sovereign default on the Treasury bonds.
As long as the US has a central bank that can print money when Treasuries fall due, the risk of default is nil.
The risk for the lenders is receiving devalued dollars.

The Coming Economic Collapse, Part 2

The populist argument against outsourcing, made by some commentators, is wrong.
Outsourcing is the free (labor) market in action. It has enabled wealth creation in countries that otherwise would be dependent on aid to avoid famine.
It has allowed companies to dramatically increase profitability, both on the employing and the employees side.
The American jobs that were the first candidates for outsourcing were the blatantly uneconomic ones.

The internet has now added an entire new dimension to outsourcing of jobs and will make it impossible to reverse or even slow down, without draconian limitations on economic freedoms.

Compared to the rest of the world, Americans have been overpaid.
In the longer run, wage rates will tend to a global equilibrium.
Wage protectionism is self-defeating.

How Will the U.S. Stress Tests Impact Asia?

[The methodology behind the stress tests are scheduled for release on Friday, 24th April, in the form of a white paper by the Fed, ]

This will be the interesting part: How bad IS the worst case economic scenario foreseen by Treasury.
Will it be too optimistic? Then the test is rather worthless.
Will it be too pessimistic? Then it may create more panic in its own right.

I look forward to see the blogs and interviews of the best economic brains scrutinizing the methodology.

Marc Faber: 'It Will All End in Disaster'

CJJ: Why not step into reality and offer some solutions.

Solutions to what?
A tipping point has been reached and a forceful moneyflow fleeing high and leveraged risk towards relative safety creates turbulence that blows away derivative contracts, gambling banks and companies.

It follows economic heating and cooling as inevitably as a weather extreme does in the athmosphere.
The real economy has to hunker down until it is over.

This storm creates many humanitarian problems that will need realistic solutions, but the for the underlying unsustainabilities in the system, the storm *is* the solution.

The less it is interfered with, the better.