Prieur’s readings

By Prieur du Plessis, on May 25th, 2009 posted in: Investment, Markets, Money

This post provides links to some thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find of interest.

• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Telegraph): US bonds sale faces market resistance, May 24, 2009.
The US Treasury is facing an ordeal by fire this week as it tries to sell $100 billion of bonds to a deeply skeptical market amid growing fears of a sovereign bond crisis in the Anglo-Saxon world.

• Donald Luskin (SmartMoney): The mysteries of the Treasury market revealed!, May 22, 2009.

• Jamil Anderlini (Financial Times): China stuck in “dollar trap“, May 24, 2009.
China’s official foreign exchange manager is still buying record amounts of US government bonds, in spite of Beijing’s increasingly vocal fear of a dollar collapse, according to officials and analysts. Over the long term, Beijing hopes to reduce the size of its enormous reserves and cut exposure to US Treasury bonds by encouraging state-owned enterprises to use foreign exchange to acquire competitors abroad.

• Daniel Gross (Slate): SWF ISO bailout, May 22, 2009.
What explains the rapid decline of sovereign-wealth funds?

• Gillian Tett (Financial Times): Why public private plan has bankers squirming, May 21, 2009.

• Bill Bradley, Niall Ferguson, Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, George Soros, Robin Wells et al. (The New York Review of Books): The crisis and how to deal with it, July 11, 2009.
Excerpts from a symposium on the economic crisis presented by The New York Review of Books and PEN World Voices at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 30.

• Nouriel Roubini (Forbes): Don’t believe the optimists, May 21, 2009.
Think you see green shoots? You’re wrong …

• The Economist: The world’s best banks – a short list, May 21, 2009.
As the dust starts to settle, which banks deserve the most plaudits?

• Martin Wolf (Financial Times): Why Britain has to curb finance, May 21, 2009.
How should one manage a sector that produces such “bads”? The answer is: in the same way as any polluting activity.

Did you enjoy this post? If so, click here to subscribe to updates to Investment Postcards from Cape Town by e-mail.

More on this topic (What's this?)

Bonds: The Most Important Asset Class (Expected Returns, 4/18/12)

How to Play Low Natural Gas Prices With Bonds (Investment U, 4/17/12)

Emerging Market Bonds: Less Risk Than You Think (Investment U, 5/11/12)

Read more on Bond Investing at Wikinvest

Stephen Mapes

May 25, 2009 at 3:42 pm

I read all these so called experts. I yet see any tangible answers to the problem other than that the government will deflate it currency to payoff its debt. What that means is that we face a lowered standard of living going forward for generations to come.

We do need innovation and productivity. Kennedy created massive innovation and productivity by going to the moon. Yet I see very little in the stimulus plan or budget similar to that which would bring about such new innovation. I see only redistribution of wealth and very little in infrastructure reinvestment. I see pork, massive potential corruption and payoffs to contributors to get re-elected.

What bothers me the most, is that Goldman Sachs was one of the organizations that developed and engineered all this toxic paper, yet you find their previous managers and Board members involved in all of this waste, fraud, and mismanagement. Loaning $100′s of billions of tax dollars to banks, that only a month ago could have been bought by the government for a song and dance. Something smells here.

The President needs a moon shot; investment in alternate energy, nuclear power, drilling offshore and Alaska to reduce our subsidy of our enemies and a massive improvement in the education of our children in math and science. We need to bring our troops home from most of the world and let them defend themselves.