Cold Winds in Cairo

When I was living in Cairo, the transition to winter was sometimes smooth. The beastly oven of summer changed slowly into a bearable fall of cool-warm. The fall moved from the cool-warm to a few weeks of cold, or at… Continue Reading

Panic in Tehran

The Iranian rial has been in free fall for the last few days. Inflation has been ramping up for the last few months as the rial has lost more than 50 percent of its value over the last year. Unemployment… Continue Reading

High Frequency Trading, “Dark Pools”, and Large Energy Price Shocks (read: war in the Gulf)

About 32 percent of all stock trades in the US stock markets are being done “off market” in “dark pools” and other confidential “trading platforms”. Trading on well-known markets such as the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ has been… Continue Reading

A Walmart for Libya

Last Sunday former President Bill Clinton asked the CEO of Walmart if he would open a store in Libya. Surely Libya needs more jobs and needs to get its economy going, but I am not sure how a Walmart would… Continue Reading

Shadow Banking and War with Iran

Shadow banks may control about 25 to 30 percent of the world’s financial system. They may be about 50 percent of all banking assets in the world. I say may in both of those sentences because it is hard to… Continue Reading