The US and Europe cannot fight inflation by raising interest rates because their domestic economies are not pushing against full employment. The source of inflation is from the emerging markets. The US and Europe need China and India to raise interest rates and fight inflation. If they get what they need, that means interest rates

Forecasting is a losing game. Forecasting commodity prices is a particularly risk losing game. So here goes. The price of oil in gold has traded in a range 0.04 – 0.06 from 1989 to 1999. In 1999 it rises to a new range. 0.08 – 0.12 breaking to 0.15 in 2005. Currently the ratio trades

Lets see how wrong I can be in a year’s time: US: Distressed will do poorly relative to expectations. Too much money chasing too few defaults. Risk arb to do well. Dispersion of valuations and financial strength, cross border opportunities for emerging market acquirers. Currency effects, cheapening USD makes US companies interesting targets. Equity long

In my view, the crisis precipitated by sub prime mortgages and the structured products into which they were packaged is merely symptomatic of a broader, simpler theme: over-leveraged consumers, themselves, symptomatic of an even simpler theme: conflicted central banks operating confused policy. The existence of central banks is an admission of the inefficiency of money

One of the simplest dynamic systems is the harmonic oscillator. Big word for a yo yo or a weight on the end of a rubber band or spring. The motion (dynamics) of such a system is described by a second order differential equation. m d^2x/dt^2 + b dx/dt + wx = F(t) m is mass.