I'm just going to get to the point right away. "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke's quantitative easing campaign has been a massive failure.

On the surface, it sounds like a great idea. Crank up the printing presses, and flood the financial system with cheap money. Fund managers realize that it's unwise...

I'll never forget the day we inaugurated Nelson Mandela as our nation's president. "Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud," Madiba said at the start of his speech, referring to our...

Is the current stock market rebound based on fundamentals, or are more sinister forces at work? Tyler Durden, one of the best financial bloggers around, have found some circumstantial evidence that suggests the mysterious Plunge Protection Team (PPT) has recently been boosting the stock market. And some might say...

Has anyone ever really believed that politicians will be able to save us from economic ruin? Didn't think so. Economic problems are global, but politics remain local. National leaders have been impotent because their top priority is not shoring up the global economy but watching their political back at home.

Last week's showdown between CNBC's Jim Cramer and (his royal highness) Jon Stewart exposed the uncomfortable truth that major media companies, like CNBC, have failed to inform us that our 401Ks are being used to bankroll the gambling of a small group of greedy people. But how did this happen?...

It's easy and counterproductive to politicize the stock market: Democrats would say it's plunging due to eight years of Republican leadership. Republicans would counter that the free-falling stock market is pricing in a Democrat in the White House.

Research based on the past 80 years shows that American...

A recent Barrons article points out that "gold and copper are each down 12% from the all-time highs seen on March 17 and March 6, respectively, while crude has fallen 11% from its March 17 high. London International Financial Futures Exchange sugar and cocoa are off 25% and 21%, respectively,...

Is this the real price?
Is this just fantasy?
Financial landslide
No escape from reality

Open your eyes
Look at your buys and see
I'm now a poor boy
High-yielding casualty

Because I bought it high, watched it blow Rating high, value low
...

Ask yourself a simple question: Do you believe that the U.S. dollar will appreciate over the next decade?

That's the question I asked myself on ThePanelist.com.

If you answered "Yes," you should be buying stocks. If you answered "No," you should be getting ready for a painful bear market....

Several analysts expect the U.S. dollar to rebound in the second half of the year. A slowing U.S. economy always affects the rest of the world with a delay, they say, and most of the bad news may already be priced into the greenback. "For Euroland, historically, the delay has...

The theory of decoupling suggests that emerging markets have broadened and deepened to the point that they no longer depend on the United States for growth, leaving them insulated from a U.S. recession.

Several analysts have claimed that decoupling is a load of rubbish, while others swear by it....

Financial firms have so far announced losses totaling around $160 billion, and UBS feels there could be a total of $600 billion in losses triggered by the subprime collapse. There is more bad news to come and central bankers know it. If UBS is correct we've only seen the tip...

I'm not going to pretend to know how to pick a bottom for stocks, but if we dissect the anatomy of a bear market we might understand why stocks markets eventually recover.

Anatole Kaletsky, a columnist at the Times, recently wrote a brilliant piece on bear markets:

When...

It's probably fair to say that the most important diplomatic relationship in the world is between the U.S. and China. Unfortunately, the relationship is souring and could get much worse. "Alas, the U.S. is mostly to blame for this," said Nicholas Kristof in a New York Times column. "There are...

Big-ass, diesel-guzzling SUVs shouldn't be the main focus of environmentalists.

We can keep bickering about the carbon emissions of industrialized nations, but that won't get us far. Environmentalists are wasting their time by hugging trees and buying hybrid cars. Installing solar panels or building wind farms is great, but...

Judging by today's selling frenzy on Wall Street, it looks like the market has finally started pricing in a worst case scenario for the U.S. economy. And the time has come to ask some important questions.

Is it safe to say that the recession is finally here? If we are...

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, lived a hairy caveman. After a long hard day of hunting mammoths and avoiding saber-tooth tigers, he scratched his nose and it started raining. He didn't think much of it at first and ran back to his cave into the...

That's probably what the Fed chairman said this morning when he woke up and saw the headlines. As it turns out, Jerome Kerviel is a 31 year old Frenchman who enjoys judo and sailing. He worked as a trader at Societe Generale, and somehow managed to lose almost €5 billion...

Investors have been fretting about a U.S. recession for months, and recent polls suggest a heightened level of economic anxiety among Americans. Assuming that we go into a mild recession, is this the time for solar investors to jump ship? To the contrary - a recession might provide some...

"Climate change will likely affect economies and financial markets by causing shocks to long-term growth prospects and shifts in the relative price of carbon-intensive goods," said Morgan Stanley's Elga Bartsch in a recent research report. "Globally, climate change will likely cause stagflationary pressure."

Because "stagflation" sounds a hell off a...