The Gold Debate Want to know what to think about gold? So do I. As best I can tell, here are the opposing camps’ two best arguments: I hate gold. It does not pay a dividend, it has no value, and you can’t work out what it should or shouldn’t be worth. It is the...Read More
“Don’t Just Stand There — Buy Something!” Some people wait for a new episode of a favorite TV series (Seinfeld, The Sopranos). Others for a new album from a favorite artist. I look forward to Jeremy Grantham’s latest quarterly newsletter. Seriously. The man’s honest, brilliantly insightful — and a great writer, to boot: Greenspan was...Read More
Misleading, Sensationalized Headlines Just days ago, Barry Ritholtz called out The Wall Street Journal for its (increasingly) misleading, out-of-context headlines. I just ran into another example yesterday on the otherwise credible RealClearMarkets.com, which aggregates the top 30 or so business-related print and blog pieces daily (mine have appeared more than a dozen times in the...Read More
Feeding the Hand That Bites You Some of New York’s biggest companies, including Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, received doses of swine flu vaccine for at-risk employees, drawing criticism that the hard-to-find vaccine is going first to the privileged. “Wall Street banks have already taken so much from us. They’ve taken trillions of...Read More
“Redesigning the Financial System” — Or Not In a world with few wise men — financial or otherwise — Jeremy Grantham certainly makes the cut (Paul Volcker, Warren Buffett, and John Bogle also come to mind). It’s hard to improve upon Grantham’s own words, from his 3rd quarter letter to shareholders (his fund manages a...Read More
Canadian De Tocqueville Does Finance The world’s concentrated financial sector has been grabbing more than its fair share of wealth because it has been able to and this must stop. “This is like looting,” said outspoken Boston money manager Jeremy Grantham. “This industry can grow to gobble up all the benefits of the real economy...Read More
