Seemed Like a Good Idea Then – By RANDALL W. FORSYTH – Architects of the biggest blunders of the past decade continue to deny basic errors. – talks about AOL, Greenspan, Bernanke, Low intereswt ratesw, and housing … – Barron’s
Top Market Timers Give Their 2010 Outlooks – By MARK HULBERT – Five investment-newsletter soothsayers with solid track records discuss how they are allocating assets in the new year. ( all 5 are bullish – BC) – Barron’s
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Billionaire Predictions 2010 – Keren Blankfeld – The world’s wealthiest share their thoughts and concerns for the economic year ahead. – Forbes
How Tech Will Change Our Future – Quentin Hardy – Say goodbye to nations, sovereignty and privacy. – With that in mind, I humbly file a few predictions for the first column of 2020, which looks back on what changes were wrought over the 10 years beginning in 2010. It won’t be 100% accurate, but it’s food for thought. To the extent it has contradictions, it is true to the times we inhabit. Besides, in a Twitter-driven news world, isn’t it better to be first than to be accurate? – Forbes
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Our double-dip future – George Soros – … We have just passed through the worst financial crisis since World War II. – In fact, the magnitude of the problem today is even greater than during the Great Depression. In 1929, total credit outstanding in the United States was 160 percent of GDP, and it rose to 250 percent by 1932. In 2008, we started at 365 percent – and this calculation leaves out the pervasive use of derivatives, which was absent in the 1930’s. Despite this, artificial life-support has worked. … Unfortunately, the recovery is liable to run out of steam, and may even be followed by a second economic downturn, though I am not sure whether it will occur in 2010 or 2011 … – Mmegi Online
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Hoenig Says Fed Should Eventually Lift Main Rate to 3.5%-4.5% – By Steve Matthews – Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig said the central bank should move “sooner rather than later” to reduce stimulus, with a goal of eventually boosting the benchmark interest rate to “probably between 3.5 and 4.5 percent.” – Bloomberg
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wow has 3 part plan – PIMCO’s January 2010 Global Central Bank Focus, “Where Exit Should Be an Oxymoron: The Bank of Japan” by Paul McCulley and Tomoya Masanao – … Thus, we were pleasantly surprised in December that the Bank of Japan publically acknowledged that it would “not tolerate a year-on-year rate of change in the CPI equal to or below 0 percent.” The BoJ’s path to anti-deflation redemption must start somewhere, and simply stating that its comfort zone for inflation does not include zero is a start. The fact of the matter is that the BoJ is trapped in a deflationary lacuna of its own making and can escape if it is willing to do the opposite of what central banks in other developed countries will eventually do in the matter of exit strategies. Simply put, the Bank of Japan needs to credibly commit to not exiting reflationary policies, even as other central banks proceed along that course. …