A number of analysts, and even some of those in the real estate industry, are finally coming around to the depressing conclusion that there will never be a recovery in residential real estate. Long time readers of this letter know too well that I have been hugely negative on the sector since late 2005, when
According to my old friend, Rick Sopher, chairman of LCH Investments in London, the top ten hedge funds have earned $153 billion for their investors since inception. Rick, who runs his business from an elegant flat on posh Eaton Square, compiled the list after a comprehensive survey of the still operating 7,000 hedge funds worldwide.
I spent the evening speaking to Gao Jie, a Beijing civil judge who left the bench to join China's growing environmental movement when her kids came home from school one day coughing and wheezing. You only have to inhale in the capitol city these days to understand that they have a huge problem there. One
'There is one peculiarity about mass psychology in that when you are in a bubble, you can't see it. Bubbles are invisible when you are inside the bubble,' said the charming Jim Dines, of The Dines Letter.
I just contracted to buy all the gasoline I want at 14 cents a gallon. No, I have not struck oil in my backyard, or come into an inheritance from a long lost Kuwaiti relative. That is the de facto price that PG&E is billing me for a full charge on my all-electric Nissan Leaf.
I am in Orlando, Florida today to appear as the Keynote speaker at the 2012 Money Show. A search for a nearby bank took me to the surreal suburb of Celebration, a city developed by the Disney people during the mid-1990's. Created to evoke small town USA circa 1940, the berg tastefully replicates an America
'Total credit market debt in the world has gone from $80 trillion to $200 trillion in the last ten years, an 11% annual rate, while GDP has grown by 4%. This can't continue. It's a simple matter of arithmetic,' said Kyle Bass, of hedge fund Hayman Partners.
The great thing about interviewing Joseph Stiglitz over dinner is that you don't have to ask any questions. You just turn him on and he spits out one zinger after another. And he does this in a kibitzing, wizened, grandfatherly manner like one would expect from a character that just walked off the set of
?We?ll still operating off of Jackson Hole, 2011 when Ben Bernanke delivered his famous speech preceding quantitative easing,? said foreign exchange trader, Ira Harris.
After my weekly dump on residential real estate, I feel obliged to reveal one corner of this beleaguered market that might actually make sense. By 2050 the population of California will soar from 37 million to 50 million, and that of the US from 300 million to 400 million, according to data released by the