Readers have asked that I stop covering the macroeconomic debate, some because they are bored, others because they agree with me, and others because they disagree. So I will defer to Ben Bernanke and Jean-Claude Trichet who will continue to disagree in public print about the need for stimulus or austerity.
Just one last comment. I was accused of being “a shill for the IMF” because I quoted its growth figures. That does not mean I agree with the austerity programs imposed by the Fund in the past; it just means that its data-collection worldwide, admitted performed with the help of its member governmetns, is the best consolidation we’ve got.
The US “stress tests” required that 10 of the 19 banks studied increase their capital. The European ones are due today and only 10 of the 91 banks studied is reportedly going to need to raise capital. Welcome to Lago Doebegon, where all the banks are safer than average.
A comforting comment came from a Washington subscriber about the reader who cancelled because (he says) she couldn’t buy “a classy stock below the radar screen”.
“A subscriber cancels because some of your recommendations are “hard to buy” even though she has made money? There are plenty of publications that will offer her easy to buy ideas that will lose her money. She violates my fundamental investing principle that you can’t expect to out perform the market if you do what everyone else is doing.”
More for paid subscribers follows from Poland to Singapore, from The Netherlands to Britain, from Israel to Greece, from Denmark to Switzerland.
