A country never has to default in debt it issues in its own currency. The exception to this is the Euro zone where the ability to print Euros lies with the ECB and not the national banks. Tough.

With any luck, you won’t be hearing from me for the next couple of weeks. So I thought I’d distill some of the themes that I’ve discussed in the past 6 months into terms as simple as possible.

  In a commercial case, faced with an intransigent debtor, (eschewing austerity, rioting in the streets, railing at creditors), the creditors would file an involuntary petition for a plan of reorganization. That they haven’t in the case of Greece is interesting. (Practicalities notwithstanding.)

It has been my forecast that the US economy would be in recession in the first half of 2011. If you use an ex Shelter deflator, it just about gets you there. A dynamic economy does not sit in a recession for long unless there are structural inefficiencies. I do not see that for the

It is never a trivial exercise to guess the direction of markets and asset classes. The best investment managers barely get it right more than half of the time. They make money because they are tactical and quick to cut losing positions and let winners ride, or they find trade expressions which give them an