Spending Our Way to Disaster (CNN.com): “The American consumer has become deeply addicted to spending, running up ever higher levels of debt in order to live in a fashion that is beyond his means. And the world has become equally addicted to the consumer continuing to burn through cash. It’s a dangerous situation -- potentially a bubble that dwarfs even the U.S.
Surge in Lending in China Stokes Economic Worries (WSJ$): “China’s banks remain government-owned and are backed by what amounts to a sovereign pledge to keep them afloat. Indeed, the banks have been carrying a huge load of bad loans for years, and have rarely experienced runs because of the country’s closed banking system and China’s traditionally trusting bank customers.
The New Yorker Magazine this week features a review of two investment classics, Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor and Burton Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Benjamin Graham, one of the teachers of billionaire investor Warren Buffert, comes down on the side of financial entrepreneurship. Based on simple mathematical models using the
Paul Craig Roberts’ statement before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (9-25-03) poses an interesting challenge: “I suggest for your consideration that comparative advantage, which permits free trade to create gains for trading partners, has been undermined by the international mobility of factors of production.
UPI Columnist Martin Hutchinson has penned a fascinating essay titled Escaping from Depression, which sounds almost like Rothbard in many passages.
