Online Samples
We have posted two FREE hand-picked issues from the recent past for your enjoyment. They are in PDF format, you'll need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to open them. Click here to download Acrobat Reader.May 6, 2011
ReadDemand a recount - "It's not the voting that's democracy," to quote the playwright Tom Stoppard. "It's the counting." So, too, with inflation. It's the calculation. Governments say one thing, the incredulous citizenry sees another. Nowhere is the gulf between assertion and perception wider than in the People's Republic of China. A kind word for some Asian currencies.
Farmland gets crazy - A new record set in Mitchell County, Iowa, as investors begin to outbid farmers. "It's been a phenomenal run-up," a broker attests of the great rally in Midwestern black earth, "the strongest I've seen in 26 years." Which would you rather own, land at 28 times earnings, or shares in the agribusiness ETF---ticker: MOO--at 17 times earnings?
Not your father's inflation - "Our customers are running out of money," the CEO of Wal-Mart, Mike Duke, declares. Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, as Milton Friedman adjured. But what if the people have no money to spend? High prices without the customers to pay them quickly become low prices.
View from the cheap seats - Our intrepid reporter delivers the inside story at the Fed's first press conference. Where is Bernanke's birth certificate?
March 25, 2011
Read'Core' inflation - The recovery in commercial real estate is uniquely concentrated. Shiny, high-rent office towers in major coastal markets command 4% cap rates while solid, cash-flowing properties in flyover cities go bidless. "Miniature money-market interest rates distort every valuation."
'Hold still, little fish!' - In one regulatory generation, "creeping inflation" has eviolved from anathema to settled policy. Where this dubious doctrine came from and where it might be leading. "A connived-at or complaisant depreciation," declared a bold Reserve Bank president of yesteryear, "cannot be covered with the cloak of respectability."
Buy the predators - Despite the crisis-induced culling, America still has too many banks. Consolidation is the familiar rallying cry, but this time there's a new wrinkle. Some sage words from Sy Jacobs.
Deflation in beer, inflation in rents - Concerning the inflationary consequences of America's mortgage-induced bankruptcies. Inflation is on the rise the world over, yet bondholders seem unfazed. Anyone for 10-year gilts priced now to deliver a real yield of minus 0.8%?
