The past decade has seen the emergence of the yield junkie. You recognize them from their propensity to pay and subsequently overpay for anything with the tiniest shred of yield from investment grade corporate bonds to sovereign bonds to AAA rated junk. In the past couple of years, the yield junkie has trampled on spreads

The need for political correctness is the tolerated, celebrated suppression of honesty. It conflicts with the goal of transparency. Yet today’s world seems to drift toward more political correctness, rhetoric and oratorical populism.

Morality and social norms are informal rules of law which humans invent to deal with conflicts which do not yet warrant formalization in law. Morality exists for pragmatic reasons, the result of a Folk Theorem.

Never write off the US consumer, particularly when the Fed is providing them with financing.

Note that the US economy had begun its recovery in October 2011. Stage 1 of the recovery came from exports. Countries that benefited were not the natural exporters like China and Japan but rather anyone exporting to emerging markets, since they were the only importers with any ability to pay. Now even this game appears