Dubai: More Bubble or More Boom? Time Will Quickly Tell

Dubai has plenty of qualities that catch an investor’s eye.

-The emirate has the world’s only (self-proclaimed) 7-star hotel.
-Dubai also is home to the biggest financial market in the Middle East, which is itself publicly quoted and trades at 25 times…

Cracks in the Monetary Facade

We are writing today from the annual Agora Financial Investment Symposium in Vancouver, British Columbia. Your editors are currently traveling from Europe to Canada and finishing the companion book to I.O.U.S.A., respectively, so today’s missive will be shorter than usual.

The…

The Lost Decade: How the U.S. Financial Crisis Resembles Japan’s Ten Years of Misery - And How to Play it

If you think the “Lost Decade” Japan endured during the 1990s was deep and painful, stick around: As the global financial crisis that was jump-started by the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market continues to unwind, the U.S. economy is…

Rising Energy Costs and the U.S. Economy

June 2008 was the second worst June in the history of the Dow Jones. The only June that was worse was in 1930, at the beginning of the Great Depression. That’s not exactly encouraging.

Why was June so bad? The dollar…

Russian Oil Exploration — And Why The US Will Be Playing Catch-up

I told you so.

While the U.S. dawdles, hems and haws over offshore drilling, the Russians are committed to developing the Arctic.

And the Russians are going to do it. They will conquer the resources of the Arctic, just as their Czarist…

The Biggest Transfer of Wealth in History

“Hedge Fund Manager Describes Rock Bottom,” says a New York Times headline.

Poor Mr. John Devaney. He had to sell his Renoir. His Gulfstream. One of his mansions. And his yacht. Ouch. He says he’s personally lost $150 million trying to…

The Coming Recession

By Lord William Rees-Mogg
London, England, U.K.

Still Burning

The downturn in the global economy is now 11 months old, if one takes the subprime crisis of August 2007 as the starting point. It has spread like the forest fires in California, establishing…

Merrill Lynch: Emerging Market Infrastructure Spending Will Surge 80% in the Next Three Years

Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. (MER) has raised its annual infrastructure-spending estimate for emerging markets by 80%, as developing countries try to keep pace with fast-growing economies and large cash reserves, BusinessWeek reported.

Investment in infrastructure, which the firm sees as…