“Ahhh, Maggie, in the world of advertising, there’s no such thing as a lie. There is only expedient exaggeration.” -Cary Grant, playing Roger Thornhill, in Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest. “When it becomes serious, you have to lie.” -Jean Claude Juncker, in April, 2011, one of the… Read More
“Consider the following simple, almost naïve question: Is it sustainable for an economy, which expands at a real growth rate of 2-3% per year, to provide a return (to investors) of say 10-15% per year?” -Didier Sornette, world renowned mathematician. Read More
“In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or even economics, but morality. Its advocates are basically opposed to the idea that wages are a market price–determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of apples or coal. And it is… Read More
“An emerging market is a market you can’t emerge from in an emergency.” -Don Coxe, for many years one of Canada’s leading portfolio managers and strategists. POINTS TO PONDER 1. The US trade deficit continues to narrow, and this improvement might… Read More
“The typical secular bear market has multiple cyclical phases—and there will be more of these cycles before the current secular bear is over.” -Ed Easterling, author of the highly regarded investment book, Unexpected Returns SPECIAL… Read More
“Never mistake a wish for a certainty.” -Maggie Smith, as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess on Downton Abbey POINTS TO PONDER 1. Irrespective of the punk jobs number last week, it does appear US consumer spending ended 2013 on a robust… Read More
“If the experience of the past few years teaches us anything, it is that we should be cautious in our forecasts.” – BEN BERNANKE, in his final official speech last week. Time rolls on! One of my friends has a less than elegant… Read More
“It is the long-term investor, he who most promotes the public interest, who will in practice come in for the most criticism. For it is in the essence of his behavior that he should be eccentric, unconventional and rash in the eyes of average opinion.” – JOHN… Read More
The Merriest Christmas On Record Louis Gave The United Nations recently released a heartening update on its “millennium goals” for the developing world, with many of its 2015 targets on the way to being met, or indeed already met. The target to halve the number… Read More
“It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” -CHARLES DARWIN POINTS TO PONDER 1. Although the US energy renaissance is now well known, it is nonetheless impressive to view the degree… Read More
