Words from the (investment) wise for the week that was (February 16 – 22, 2009) A perfect storm of a deepening global recession and banking woes last week battered equities and supported the safe havens of the US dollar, government bonds and gold bullion. A dismal corporate earnings outlook, fears...

As inflation falls to its lowest level since 1960 savers and borrowers to play "Let's Twist Again" as winners and losers in the money illusion swap places....

Words from the (investment) wise for the week that was (January 12 – 18, 2009) Investor sentiment around the globe was negatively impacted during 2009’s second full week of trading as a barrage of bleak economic and corporate news offered more confirmation of a deepening recession, bringing ...

Words from the (investment) wise for the week that was (Dec 15 - 21, 2008) “Americans have always been able to handle austerity and even adversity. Prosperity [greed!] is what is doing us in,� said James Reston, former New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner. Another chapter in deali...

Words from the (investment) wise for the week that was (November 17 – 23, 2008) by Prieur du Plessis ~~~ A new bout of fear gripped financial markets during the past week, causing the slide in global stocks, commodities and emerging-market assets to deepen. As investors’ angst escalated, positio...

Trend: The low CPI in the U.S. is distorting economic reality for investors. Bill Gross at PIMCO dishes out some tough medicine for the U.S. Excerpts below. Link: PIMCO - IO June 2008. The correct measure of inflation matters in a number of areas, not the least of which are social security payments ...

The New York Times made a pretty cool graph out of the Consumer Price Index, which tracks changes in prices for many consumer goods over the past year. Turns out, gas prices went up. The Times graph, a form of Voronoi Treemap, divides consumer spending into numerous categories and subcategories, all...

"Hard Numbers: The Economy is Worse than You Know" [full article for Harper's subscribers, a different abridged version] discusses how the Consumer Price Index and other US economic statistics have been manipulated over time. Among other things, the article claims, these changes make Socia...

Filed under: Bad news, Consumer experience, Economic data U.S. consumer confidence is at its lowest level since the Nixon Administration of the 1970s, according to one measure. U.S. consumer confidence fell in March 2008 to 64.5 -- a 35-year low -- the Conference Board announced Tuesday. Economists ...

One of the concerns we have expressed here over the years is that there was much more -- and less -- to the post 2001 recession recovery than met the eye. Several years ago, this was a controversial position. We first suspected we were on to something, however, when the many critics of this view fou...