Archive - Jun 28, 2011 - Blog entry

Here Troiky, dinner time...

Recession and/or brink of collapse?

BIS is warning of higher rates to come.

"All financial crises, especially those generated by a credit-fuelled property price boom, leave long-lasting wreckage”

Bank for International Settlements

We have not recovered from the Great Recession and thus our current economic stagnation is less a new event than a continuation of the original collapse. The basis for the so-called “recovery” was a rise in GDP, that measure of what we have spent in the economy. It’s a fairly useless bit of data.

Many pundits talk about Europe, and we hear about experts on CNBC discussing the Greek situation, but have never understood what Europe is. It is not the United States of Europe. Geography, history, religion makes it very hard to integrate the different countries in Europe on the ideological front, but even harder when it comes to the Economy. Below a great summary for all those experts that don’t have a clue what Europe really is. Courtesey of Stratfor’s Papic.

The stock is up 35% on news of a non-exclusive content deal. To sell content into a market unaccustomed to paying for it. How could this possibly go wrong?

Regardless of what Greece does, the facts remain that we are headed into another Crisis in the near future. The global economy has already begun to roll over. Social unrest has spread from the Middle East to Europe. The US is now actively raiding pension funds to fund its debt issuance, and more.

May the farce be with you...

More nuclear mishaps?

Specialist hedge fund consultants are at “the leading edge of the phenomenon of many pension plans, especially public plans, moving to direct hedge fund investment,” said David Harmston, partner and global head of Albourne Partners' client group. Is he right?

In the current market environment, many investors are positioned in what they perceive to be ‘defensive’ market segments, such as healthcare, telecoms, staples and utilities. To us, this is the wrong choice!