Money and Finance
- Deleveraging, What Deleveraging? - The 16th Geneva Report On The World Economy
Link to report: Deleveraging, What Deleveraging? It is widely accepted that high levels of debt (of various forms) have played a central role in the 2008-09 global financial crisis, the 2010-12 euro crisis and many previous crisis episodes. The adverse...
- Richard Duncan Quotes
“Before 1971, currencies were pegged either directly or indirectly to gold. Therefore, there was nothing to be gained by creating fiat money in order to buy any other country’s currency. When the fixed exchange rate system ended with the collapse...
- The Gutenberg Economy - By Michael Lewitt
Adam Smith is spoken of as the father of modern laissez faire capitalism, as well he should be. But the market system Smith described in The Wealth of Nations (1776) no longer exists. Instead, it has morphed into a system of fiat money that owes its existence...
- Should Value Investors Care About The Debt Crisis? - By Zeke Ashton
The 2011 debt crisis is largely about whether or not the largest and most credit-worthy nations have the balance sheets, the willingness, or the credibility to bail out the smaller and less credit worthy nations. Given that the governments of even the...
- First Eagle Funds Conference Call - May 6, 2008
Jean-Marie Eveillard: Now, let me move to an update to the current investment scene as we see it. I think investing is a matter of trying to balance what I would call circumstances and prices. In terms of circumstances, we have been, for a while, in a...
Money and Finance
Dundee 2011 Annual Report
We have been living through such a time as we witness the financial markets ebb and flow based on not totally understood macroeconomic events. The world remains in a major financial crisis and central bankers are taking extreme gambles which could have serious longer term negative repercussions.
George Soros asks the question: “When do the reflexive connections which are endemic in financial markets turn into self reinforcing, historically significant processes which affect not only prices in the financial markets but also the so‐called fundamentals that those prices are supposed to reflect?” He then submits an hypothesis, that has to be tested, that there has to be both some form of credit or leverage and some kind of misconception or misinterpretation involved for a boom‐bust process to develop. He goes on to say that “Misconceptions play a significant role in the making of history.”
While his message was particularly relevant in understanding the 2008 market crisis and bust, it also helps to give some understanding to the current turmoil in Europe and the United States – that misunderstanding and misconception of the degree of impact of the vast quantity of sovereign credit and leverage, especially in the United States and its “reserve currency” dollar.
Historically, be it for a state, a company, or an individual, an excess of debt and/or credit does not lead to good things, especially when we have to deal with fiat currencies as the only available resource to achieve repayment.
- Deleveraging, What Deleveraging? - The 16th Geneva Report On The World Economy
Link to report: Deleveraging, What Deleveraging? It is widely accepted that high levels of debt (of various forms) have played a central role in the 2008-09 global financial crisis, the 2010-12 euro crisis and many previous crisis episodes. The adverse...
- Richard Duncan Quotes
“Before 1971, currencies were pegged either directly or indirectly to gold. Therefore, there was nothing to be gained by creating fiat money in order to buy any other country’s currency. When the fixed exchange rate system ended with the collapse...
- The Gutenberg Economy - By Michael Lewitt
Adam Smith is spoken of as the father of modern laissez faire capitalism, as well he should be. But the market system Smith described in The Wealth of Nations (1776) no longer exists. Instead, it has morphed into a system of fiat money that owes its existence...
- Should Value Investors Care About The Debt Crisis? - By Zeke Ashton
The 2011 debt crisis is largely about whether or not the largest and most credit-worthy nations have the balance sheets, the willingness, or the credibility to bail out the smaller and less credit worthy nations. Given that the governments of even the...
- First Eagle Funds Conference Call - May 6, 2008
Jean-Marie Eveillard: Now, let me move to an update to the current investment scene as we see it. I think investing is a matter of trying to balance what I would call circumstances and prices. In terms of circumstances, we have been, for a while, in a...