Revealing the hideous off-spring of Margaret Thatcher's "market disciplines" and the ever-swelling tax-funded state...

Tuesday 16 May 2006 4:50 AM EST

Key News

• Bloomberg Economic Calendar:
  

• Unintended Consequences
• Rating Agencies Gone Wild
• The I-Facto

Interview with John Bellamy Foster 

MW: The financial crisis is quickly turning into a political crisis. Already governments in

Jack Lifton, a consultant, author and public speaker with more than 45 years of experience in sourcing and recycling minor metals (includin

Fear, Mr. Bond, takes gold out of circulation and hoards it against the evil day. In a period of history when every tomorrow may be the

The chart below, provided to me by Barry Bannister, clearly illustrates the countdown to hyperinflation.

I've had a minor obsession with Detroit for the past year or so, ever since I learned that one could purchase a single family home there for

With consumer confidence now testing generational lows, our politicians are never the less continuously assuring us that the economy is strong, a

Imagine living amongst a race of immortal, super-human creatures with superior intellect, abilities, resources and power. Further, imagine that t

Last Friday night the lovely Miss Puddy accompanied me on our usual Friday night outing to the movies. Even though we were out of town we managed

V for Vendetta is a 2006 film set in a dystopian future United Kingdom, wher

"Who is the judge? The judge is God... Why is He God? Because He decides who wins or loses, not my opponent ... Who is you

The stock market surged upwards upon hearing the US Federal Reserve may cut interest rates to save the economy. This is tantamount to heroin

Well the dollar index is heading for the cellar and gold is heading for the moon. Of course a falling dollar index simply means the dollar is fal

What the first thing you think of when you hear "tick, tick, tick"?

It could be a clock, but if you watched enough action f

Making a conscious decision to trade financial markets is the same as engaging in battle with the most cunning and merciless of adversaries. It i

If there was any doubt that the American people were engaged in a deep, collective slumber, one need look no further than the cover story of the mo

The contradictions running wild today have rarely been more acute. To be sure, and depending on the source, the U.S. economy is supposedly already

Near the beginning of the documentary The Great Crash of 1929 , economist John Kenneth Galb

See Part I here

After the tremendous bull run of the 1920's, the stock marke

The Dow closed at another new, all time high today (12,251 on Wednesday November 15) so the economy must be doing great, right? But just a second -

Dear Subscribers,

I hope all our subscribers had a good week - and that none of you were "caught the wrong way" in both the stock and

Please see Part I of this article, A Cautionary Housing Tale from Japan , here.

Yesterday, in a turnaround reminiscent of the 1960's film "Cool Hand Luke," the bosses at Morgan Stanley finally succeeded in getting poor old Step

Back in the 1950s when gold, silver and oil were far less interesting subjects, Hollywood produced one of its better science fiction B-movies ca

Not practicing what one preaches

I inadvertently opened a can of worms in writing the essay "

Every industry boasts its yearly surveys of global supply and d

At a meeting in Lisbon in 2001 the leaders of the European Union proudly proclaimed that the Union would become, by 2010, "the most competitive an

Over the last four years I have written about a variety of cycles I employ to develop economic or financial forecasts. The Stock Cycle¹