Forecast 2010 – 2015: An Introduction
by ilene - January 11th, 2010 8:51 pm
I’m really looking forward to Jesse’s next installment. – Ilene
Forecast 2010 – 2015: An Introduction
Courtesy of Jesse’s Café Américain
I am in the midst of preparing a forecast for the next five to ten years for the United States economy, and by extension the world because of the intertwining effects of the dollar reserve currency and US consumption in the global economy. And of course the US position as the world’s sole superpower.
Before I do that, I thought it might be useful to see a recap of my last five year forecast, to set the playing field as it were, as a sort of an introduction. The next forecast will be similar in format and style, but may be a little more complex, because the US, and the world, are at a critical crossroads in history.
The greatest struggle in writing this sort of thing is to keep it brief, to prevent it expanding into a lengthy treatise that examines too many particulars, too many possibilities. Forecasters often succumb to the temptation to throw out many specific predictions and possibilities, in the hopes of ‘hits’ that will be remembered, with misses forgotten, without giving sufficient weight to the probabilities. In addition, clarity and consciences are always the challenge in writing non-fiction regarding complex subjects.
Please keep in mind that this forecast was published on my old website at the beginning of 2005, when optimism was running high, the maestro was still on his throne, black swans still an uncommon topic, and the US was in a fresh bull market in stocks with a growing housing bubble that very few would admit, and many would vehemently deny. This forecast is being written in darker hours, when some of the horsemen have already been unleashed.
I have edited out extraneous contemporary detail, and most of the charts which are dated, except for one. I edited out some grammatical errors and awkward phrasing. The timeframe has been ‘compartmentalized’ to five years, from a more open-ended original, because at the time I wrote in 2005 I did not imagine I would still be at this blogging effort five years later. I have also renumbered the footnotes and eliminated several for the sake of simplicity and relevance.
`Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall:
Humpty Dumpty had a
…
 Email This Post
|
 Twitter
|
LinkedIn
|
 del.icio.us
|
Google+ |
Throwing Bernanke under the bus
by ilene - June 25th, 2009 9:40 pm
Here’s Edward Harrison’s take on the Bernanke hearings. – Ilene
Throwing Bernanke under the bus
Courtesy of Edward Harrison at Credit Writedowns
In case you missed it, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was on Capitol Hill this morning making his case in regards to the Bank of America – Merrill Lynch deal. The Chairman stated in unequivocal terms that he did not pressure anyone. Rather, he stated that he cautioned Ken Lewis about the prudence of invoking a MAC clause and doubted whether Lewis could be successful in extracting himself from the deal (I agree that the MAC clause was not going to help BofA).
Whether Bernanke is justified in his defense is irrelevant at this juncture. What is relevant, however, is that the Bank of America – Merrill Lynch deal has become a central episode for political recriminations and posturing. As I said two weeks ago:
My take here is that the Bank of America case has become very political – and that means the blame game is going to be played. Someone — Bernanke, Lewis, Thain or Paulson — is going to take the fall. The knives are out.
Indeed, the knives are out and it is looking increasingly likely that Bernanke will be the scapegoat. Below is a Bloomberg News video with Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee. If you listen to what Towns is saying, it does not look very good for Ben Bernanke.
Next on the hot seat: Hank Paulson.
Earlier today at Credit Writedowns, courtesy of Edward:
Is Bernanke Toast? If he is, Summers is a shoo-in
Here’s a conspiracy theory for you. As I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, I ill keep this one pretty simple. Here’s the chain of events.
Back in late September when the world was falling apart, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner and Hank Paulson were all desperate to keep things from unravelling. As a result, they were pleased that Ken Lewis and Bank of America were willing to pony up massive $44 billion to take over Merrill Lynch. They might even have encouraged the deal (i.e. we will smooth the way. There will be no FTC hurdles. We will soft peddle investigation into Countrywide mortgage fraud, etc)
The problem, of course, was that Merrill Lynch was a bottomless pit of…
| Email This Post
|
Twitter
|
LinkedIn
|
del.icio.us
|
Google+ |
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Chinese
Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(
