Free Republic

Julian Robertson, the legendary hedge fund manager behind Tiger Management, thinks central banks are fueling bubbles throughout financial markets. "We don't have negative rates here in the States yet, but I think it's tragic that we've taken rates down this far," Robertson said this week at Bloomberg's Surveillance Primetime event. "I know the Federal Reserves all over the world are trying to ensure prosperity, but in doing so I think they are ensuring a huge bubble, which will be pricked, and we will all be hurt by it." Negative and near-zero interest rates from central banks have allowed increased borrowing......

Ambitious expansion plans by small and medium towns across China have lead to the creation of more than 3,500 “new areas” for residential and economic use raising fears many are destined to become ghost towns. The combined projected population of these new areas is an “impossible” 3.4 billion people – 2.5 times the current number of people in the country, experts say. The world’s population today stands at 7.3 billion, according to the US Census Bureau.

And Hong Kong hasn't even opened yet.

Usually, long experience and practice is something of great merit. Presumably, with age comes much knowledge and useful perspective. That is not necessarily so in today’s world of political economics and financial markets. Today, long experience is more likely to be a hindrance … a so-called mill stone around the ankle. One is not so free to accept farcical policies and quick-fix solutions. It appears that the economic “body of knowledge” accumulated in the standard text books over the last 50 to 150 years or so no longer has any application. No need apparently. New enlightenment is all that is...

The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7653, is an emission nebula located 11,000 light-years away. This stunning new image was observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to celebrate its 26th year in space. Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team =============================================================================================================== This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, released to celebrate Hubble's 26th year in orbit, captures in stunning clarity what looks like a gigantic cosmic soap bubble. The object, known as the Bubble Nebula, is in fact a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by the brilliant star within it. The vivid new portrait of this dramatic scene...

On a day like Monday when the market drifted down slowly, Jim Cramer was inclined to agree with Donald Trump's view of the stock market. Last week, Trump told the Washington Post that there is a big bubble in the economy, and the stock market is inflated. ..snip... On a day like Monday when the market drifted down slowly, Jim Cramer was inclined to agree with Donald Trump's view of the stock market. Last week, Trump told the Washington Post that there is a big bubble in the economy, and the stock market is inflated. "It's worth pondering Mr. Trump's...

Global stock markets are on their shakiest footing in years. Investors are fleeing stocks and running to safe-havens like bonds and gold, driven by concerns about economic growth and the effectiveness of central banks' policies. At the same time, tumbling energy prices are upending the economies of oil-producing countries, further slicing into global economic growth. Only six weeks ago cheap oil prices were still expected to cushion the global economy, and the Federal Reserve's decision in December to raise interest rates for the first time since the end of the financial crisis in 2008 was widely seen as a vote...

Amid another battering for stocks Monday, billionaire businessman Donald Trump contended that markets still look overvalued. "I hope I'm wrong, but I think we're in a big, fat, juicy bubble," the Republican presidential candidate said on CNBC's "Power Lunch." Major U.S. stock averages were down more than 2 percent each Monday afternoon, continuing a rocky year in which the S&P 500 has fallen 10 percent. Fears about slowing growth in the United States and around the globe have contributed to the recent selling. Trump, who was in New Hampshire ahead of Tuesday's primary voting, criticized the state of the economy...

I think this is another underlooked aspect of what just happened. I suppose the RINO Governors would have been on stage anyway. I wonder if FIORINO was on the stage if less time would have been allowed for big boy pants and bubble boy to attack eachother?

The global economy seems trapped in a "death spiral" that could lead to further weakness in oil prices, recession and a serious equity bear market, Citi strategists have warned.

Yesterday’s Boston Herald featured this endorsement in the New Hampshire GOP presidential primary. A former U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, [Chris] Christie knows something about being on the front lines of the ongoing war on terror. (SNIP) Not mean-spirited? Not hateful? Tell that to the young woman Christie sandblasted in a New Hampshire town hall meeting Monday night when she asked why he hadn’t stayed in his home state a little longer to help the recovery effort from last weekend’s monster snowstorm.

The stock market currently is even more overvalued than it was at the bull market peaks of both March 2000 and October 2007 -- according to not just one, but two, valuation measures. That at least is the message of an analysis released earlier this week by Ned Davis Research, the quantitative research firm. What caught my eye in the firm's analysis was that, unlike virtually all others that conclude that stocks are overvalued, this one was not based on the so-called Shiller P/E -- the cyclically-adjusted P/E ratio championed by Nobel laureate Robert Shiller of Yale University. That's noteworthy,...

THE curtain at the edge of the universe may be rippling, hinting that there's more backstage. Data from the European Space Agency's Planck telescope could be giving us our first glimpse of another universe, with different physics, bumping up against our own. That's the tentative conclusion of an analysis by Ranga-Ram Chary, a researcher at Planck's US data centre in California. Armed with Planck's painstaking map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) - light lingering from the hot, soupy state of the early universe – Chary revealed an eerie glow that could be due to matter from a neighbouring universe...

(snip) If we thought it was stupid to invest in public internet websites that had no chance of succeeding back then, it’s worse today. In a bubble there is always someone with a “great” idea pitching an investor the dream of a billion dollar payout with a comparison to an existing success story. In the tech bubble it was Broadcast.com, AOL, Netscape, etc. Today its, Uber, Twitter, Facebook, etc. To the investor, its the hope of a huge payout. But there is one critical difference. Back then the companies the general public was investing in were public companies. They may...

On Monday, we got some color on Hillary Clinton’s $350 billion plan to make college more affordable. Students and former students across the country owe more than $1.2 trillion in college loans, and as Bill Ackman so eloquently put it earlier this year, "there’s no way they’re going to pay it back." The fact that America’s student loan bubble is the focus of what may well end up being one of Clinton’s most expensive policy proposals speaks volumes about the urgency of the problem. Of course there are some other folks who understand how quickly the situation is deteriorating. Chief...

The world's most valuable public company saw its stock price drop for a fifth straight day on Tuesday Apple shares are down 14 percent since closing at a record $133 in February That loss breaks down to $113.4billion in paper wealth iPhone sales were not as good as some analysts predicted, and the lukewarm forecast for the current period is causing the drop World's most valuable public company saw its stock price drop for a fifth straight day on Tuesday, falling as much as $5.19 or 4.4 percent, to $113.25 as investors fretted over China's economy and whether Apple can...

People complain about high prices when they’re buying, not when they’re selling, and that’s why housing bubbles are always politically popular: The sort of people who own homes are the sort of people who vote and volunteer on political campaigns and make donations. And the fact that tax revenue tends to increase as housing prices rise doesn’t go unnoticed by the nation’s mayors and governors. Renters tend to have more sensible views — you’ll never hear a renter say, “Hey, my rent is doubling this year — that’s awesome! The economy must be doing great!” But nobody listens to them....

Looking to bargain hunt the recent plunge in Chinese stocks—bid up in an "enormous speculative frenzy" over the past year—would be like "catching a falling knife," former Morgan Stanley Asia Chairman Stephen Roach said Tuesday, just days after returning from a trip to China. Chinese stocks were volatile again overnight, but closed well off session lows, as investors remained doubtful of the efficacy of Beijing's recent market rescue measures. "The bubble is bursting" and predicting the bottom is anyone's guess, Roach told CNBC's "Squawk Box" in an interview. He added, however, that China's efforts to transform its economy remain unchanged....

We already knew the rent was too damn high, even before we published a report this February showing not only that the median for a one bedroom apartment in the city had jumped to $3,460, but that even formerly cheaper neighborhoods were now among the pricey. Apparently though, they weren’t high enough. According to Zillow, the new median rent in San Francisco is $4,225 a month. Zillow’s data compose the “Zillow Rental Index” (ZRI). This index shows rents up 16% year-over-year (YOY) this April, and take into account all types of rentals in San Francisco proper, from single family homes...