A personal appeal: If you live in the U.S., please call your Senators and ask them to co-sponsor the Brown-Kaufman SAFE Banking Act. Time is of the essence. True, it is a futile effort; but also a noble one, and that is enough.
If you are short the stock market — or any market — you will want to read Jeremy Grantham’s latest. In his view, the mostly likely sequence of events over the next 18-24 months is: (a) A weak economic recovery, causing (b) the Fed to keep rates at zero, causing (c) an already overvalued market to become dangerously overvalued, leading to (d) a collapse that makes the last two years look like a test run. Grantham has made a career out of studying and profiting from asset price bubbles, and his track record is pretty good.
Our Giant Banking Crisis — What To Expect. A little long but worth the read.
What I Think About Financial Reform by Arnold Kling. Unsurprising. Everyone knows the Dodd bill is designed to change nothing, because Dodd is more concerned with his next job (lobbyist for Wall Street) than his current one.
The Keiser Report #35. Crazy but enjoyable, as usual.
Jeremy Grantham’s outlook seems to be the one that makes the most sense to me. I can’t see how the stuff that’s going on now — extend and pretend while unemployment is high and next to nothing is being done to address that — can end well. People are back to their old ways of speculating in stocks and flipping homes.