Everyone with a pension fund or 401K invested in stocks better hope the Fed becomes the buyer of last resort, and soon. Much has been written about what the Federal Reserve cannot do: it can’t stop the Covid-19 pandemic or reverse the economic dama…
Threats, propaganda and the Orwellian dissolution of social trust cannot stop a withdrawal from the status quo.Longtime readers know I’ve had an active interest in what differentiates empires/nations that survive crises and those that collapse. Th…
Force cannot restore legitimacy, trust or confidence, nor can it magically erase the consequences of a still-unfolding national trauma.The Chinese authorities threatening to punish workers who refuse to return to work are getting a lesson in the limits…
The economic storm hasn’t passed; the false calm is only the eye of the financial hurricane.To understand the economic cataclysm ahead, do the math. Those expecting the Covid-19 pandemic to leave the U.S. economy untouched are implicitly maki…
As empty streets and shelves attest, people taking charge of risk has dire economic consequences.How many cases of Covid-19 in your community will it take for you to decide not to frequent public places such as cafes, restaurants, theate…
The greater the excesses, speculative euphoria and moral hazard, the greater the reversal.A very convenient conviction is rising in the panicked financial netherworld that the Federal Reserve and its fellow dark lords will “save the market” from COVID-…
Given the exquisite precariousness of the global financial system and economy, hopes for a brief and mild downturn are wildly unrealistic.If we asked a panel of epidemiologists to imagine a virus optimized for rapid spread globally and high lethality, …
Hapless bagholders have two options: buy the dip and be destroyed, or hang on hoping for a reversal and be destroyed. One often overlooked characteristic of the current stock market bubble is the extremely small exit for sellers trying to avoid becoming…
If you think global demand will rebound as global debt and confidence implode, you better not be making consequential decisions based on Euphorestra-addled magical thinking.Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the global economy was slowing for two reaso…
The question of legitimacy isn’t limited to China.what makes humans unique among social mammals? Some say humor, I would nominate superstition: regardless of how hard we promote our rationality and logic, humanity continues to sense portents and o…
