I watched the Soros talk on CSPAN, and it was not too thrilling. His comments were fairly benign. He said the Euro's drop could be stopped if the ECB was a bit more aggressive in talking it up and in intervening.
A couple of random bubble notes from James Grant's The Trouble With Prosperity:
1. In Japan, capital spending did not peak until 1991, over a year after the stock market peaked.
2. In 1932, at the bottom of the Great Depression, Citibank's forerunner had equity capital of 12.7% of total assets, earned 9.2% on equity, and loans were 47% of deposits. During the mild 1990 recession, the numbers were 3.4%, 4.4%, and 106%, respectively.
3. A NYSE seat sold for $625,000 in 1929. In 1942, the asking price was $17,000. That's right, kids, that's a 97% drop! It was also a 45-year low.
HO HO HO!
Tom |
