A rather eye-opening headline appearing in the financial press is worth discussing here because it’s symptomatic of a bigger problem plaguing the economy. This problem will only increase in the coming months and there’s ample reason for believing it will eventually undermine the cyclical bull market in ... Read More

Silver has stolen the spotlight among investors in recent days after surging nearly $50/oz. Lost in all the commotion, however, are the wildly disparate rumors accompanying silver’s rally. It’s hard to believe that it has been only a week since a widely circulated story concerning a large ... Read More

In 1931 a financial writer named Garet Garrett wrote the now classic book, "A Bubble That Broke the World." Garrett's contention was that the Great Crash of 1929 was made possible by the Federal Reserve's monetary policy. Eighty years later another Fed-induced crisis is forming which, if allowed to continue, ... Read More

The rising price of food and fuel is garnering more and more attention in the economic news headlines. There’s a good reason for this since a continued increase in the oil price could easily upset the economic recovery and send the U.S. economy tumbling back ... Read More

The last few weeks has seen a startling rise in fuel and food prices. This has been a key contributor to the political and economic instability overseas; it’s also paving the way for an even bigger crisis for the U.S. and the world economy by 2012. Indeed, the ... Read More

Who’s going to regulate the regulators? The single most dominant theme among political commentators is the belief that government should do something – anything – to fix the financial system. Regardless of party affiliation, there is a near universal agreement that government should be charged with the ... Read More

A situation is developing the global markets which threatens to undo the recovery of the past two years. The price spikes in fuel and especially agriculture prices is the Achilles’ heel of the recovery and may well serve as its death knell before the year is through. The surge in commodity ... Read More

After two years of issuing “sell” ratings on equities and making bearish pronouncements on the year-ahead economic outlook, Wall Street has finally turned bullish again. Recent analyst polls reveal the consensus outlook for 2011 is for another year of double-digit stock market gains. Even stalwart bears are starting to sound ... Read More

An oft-repeated maxim is that real estate is one of the best long-term investments. For the better part of the last 60 years or so this certainly held true. In a typical “long wave” or 60-year Kress cycle, real estate benefits almost from the start of the inflationary leg of ... Read More