Archives for August, 2014
There are generally considered to be two schools of economic thought concerning gold: the Keynesians and their fellow travellers consider gold to be “a barbarous relic”, in Keynes’ words. The other side, such as the Austrian school, considers that gold (and silver) are real wealth. In a debate during the Great…
Many economists believe that a measure of global shipping activity, such as the Baltic Dry Index, is a reliable economic indicator. The primary reason is they believe that the supply of ships is inelastic and thus movements in the index are a measure of demand only. They also often believe…
Humans, perhaps by design, are always too optimistic. For example, everyone considers their driving to be excellent, notwithstanding massive evidence to the contrary. People think they are smarter, more talented and better looking than they actually are. In 2007, psychologists Daniel Kahneman (a Nobel laureate) and Jonathon Renshon published a…
Today the mainstream commentariat is little more that the mouthpiece of the ruling elite. There is no finer example than the immediate blaming of Vladimir Putin last month for the downing of MH17, without a shred of evidence. You will see below that now even US analysts agree it was…
Following are links to the five most popular posts, along with a brief explanation as to why they may be popular. Reader feedback would be invaluable, if you have the time. My posts are approximately weekly, use our RSS feed for new post alerts. The site was hacked in early…
The chart below, from the US Energy Information Administration, shows how fracking is effectively cash flow negative. This in turn implies that it is an energy negative process at current prices, it consumes more energy than it produces. For the year ending 31 March 2014 operational cash flow from 127…