Archive - Sep 7, 2014

President Obama has swung from "we have no strategy" to "keep in mind this is something we know how to do," in a week, and speaking on Meet The Press this morning he teased the world's allies (and terrorists) with the promise that he will address the nation Wednesday to lay out U.S. plans for combating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), promising the U.S. can and will defeat the group. As CBS reports, while not quite as gung-ho as Biden's "gates of hell" speech, President Obama appears to have stepped up his rhetoric from 'contain' to 'defeat' as he stated "we will hunt down [ISIS] members and assets wherever they are," but carefully added putting U.S. troops on the ground would be a "profound mistake."

One trillion is a big number. In this short clip, we try to help you get a sense for just how big; but the reality is simply that the human brain can't really suitably comprehend magnitudes this large. Which is why we should be concerned that the US' money supply has ballooned to over $12 trillion dollars over the past decade. And that its outstanding debts and liabilities are many multiples that amount. We have reached the point where we’re operating in territory beyond our neural programming. As a result, unintended consequences to our current policies are guaranteed.

The constant to-and-fro of lies, propaganda, and misinformation continues among all sides in Ukraine; but this 'denial' occurred very rapidly. As Reuters reports, a senior aide to Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said on Sunday that Kiev had reached agreement during the NATO summit in Wales on the provision of weapons and military advisers from five member states of the alliance. However, four of those five swiftly denied making any such pledge.

Today, high inflation seems so remote that many analysts treat it as little more than a theoretical curiosity. They are wrong to do so. No matter how much central banks may wish to present the level of inflation as a mere technocratic decision, it is ultimately a social choice. And some of the very pressures that helped to contain inflation for the past two decades have been retreating. Modern central banking has worked wonders to bring down inflation. Ultimately, however, a central bank's anti-inflation policies can work only within the context of a macroeconomic and political framework that is consistent with price stability. Inflation may be dormant, but it is certainly not dead.

Straight-forward discussion about the investment climate and the week ahead.  Light on hyperbole, heavy on analysis.  

NO STINKIN' FOOD OR BEVERAGES WITH THIS POST...