I recently reviewed Your Money Ratios by Charles Farrell and the publisher was kind enough to offer a free copy to one of my readers. If you left a comment on the review, you were entered in the draw. I received 8 comments, so I numbered them from first to eighth. I asked my youngest son to pick a number between 1 and 8 to choose the winner. He chose 7, so Simple Savings will receive the book.
With all that’s happening in the global economy at the moment, it should be a pretty interesting weekend. Meetings are being held in Europe to figure out some way to help Greece manage its untenable debt load. It’s a good time to stay up to date with current events, especially if you have money on the line in the markets.
Still, the types of events that are currently transpiring have the potential to affect all of us, whether we are invested in markets or not. The issues surrounding global sovereign debt levels and fraud allegations at the highest levels of the banking system can be difficult for regular folks like you and I to understand, but they have the potential to profoundly affect the global economy and therefore, our lives. This is a time for all of us to pay a little more attention to economics.
Weekend Reading
Here’s a look at what I’m reading this weekend:
- Barry Ritholtz has a terrific look at current conditions in Macro Overview: Economy & Markets as well as some timely comments on The ‘Worrisomely Unworried’ Crowd. Later,however, Barry posted the flip side of this with Many Still See Economic Gloom.
- A couple of posts by Michael Panzner on whether or not the U.S. is in the throes of A ‘Unique’ Fiscal Crisis and how “Mr. or Ms. Average Joe” is Not Convinced that the storm has passed and it’s blue skies ahead. Apparently, Mom and Pop aren’t buying what Wall Street is selling. How about you?
- “We are Wall Street . . . we are smarter and more vicious than [dinosaurs]“. This is an email of unknown origin that was reprinted at FT Alphaville. It’s basically a Wall Street trader’s rebuttal of the scorn being leveled in the direction of financial players. He (she?) actually has a few good points, but I suspect Mr. or Ms. Average Joe would find the tenor of the email irritating to say the least. (Update: Jesse’s Café Américain has a very witty rebuttal to this email!)
- Naked Capitalism posted a video of Bill Black on Bill Moyers. If you want to hear an honest opinion on financial regulation and an unvarnished account of what really happened with Lehman and others during the financial collapse of 2008 I highly recommend that you set aside a few minutes to watch this video (or read the transcript) in full. It’s definitely worth your time.
- Kevin Press writes the Today’s Economy Blog for Sun Life Financial and he posts a weekly Media Pack that’s become a must read for me. If you’re crunched for time during the week and have a hard time keeping up with economic events, put this post on your weekend reading list. (The links here are for the 2 most recent editions.)
- Greece Is One Giant Ponzi Scheme. Here’s another article that pulls no punches. It comes to us courtesy of the Financial Post and is written by someone with intimate knowledge of the business and political climate in Greece. Raise your hand if you think Greece is not the only country in the “We Heart Charles Ponzi Club”. (Only a few commentators have been brave enough to whisper “The U.S. and the U.K. are in the same boat.” Shhhh. Don’t say anything. Maybe no one will notice.)
- Here’s a story, again from the Financial Post, of one analyst who isn’t afraid to speak the unspeakable. It’s a Q&A with Niall Ferguson. Whenever I see his name, I pay attention. He’s right a lot.
- Calculated Risk informs us that the Unofficial Problem Bank List Hits 722 and that 96.5% of Mortgages [are] Backed by Government Entities in Q1.
I hope you find these articles to be informative and useful. The theme that emerges from all of them seems to reflect the sentiment that became a cliché in the 80s as a result of the long-running police series Hill Street Blues: “And hey . . . Let’s be careful out there.“
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