• September 28, 2013

The Renminbi: Soon to Be a Reserve Currency?

I get the question all the time: when will the Chinese renminbi (RMB) replace the US dollar as the major world reserve currency? The assumption behind such questions is almost always that the coming crisis in US entitlement programs will force the Fed to monetize even more debt, thereby killing the dollar. Or some derivative line of that thought. Contrary to the thinking of fretful dollar skeptics, my firm belief is that the US dollar is going to become even stronger and will at some point...

• September 21, 2013

Rich City, Poor City

"The future is already here," intoned William Gibson, one of my favorite cyberpunk science fiction authors, "it's just not very evenly distributed." Paraphrasing Gibson, the pension crisis is already here; it's just not very evenly distributed. For the past two weeks we've been exploring the problems of state pension funds. This week we will conclude our look at pension plans for the nonce with a 30,000-foot overview of the states and then take a deeper dive into one city: mine. This will...

• September 14, 2013

Nothing But Bad Choices

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.
– Thomas Sowell

With a few exceptions here and there, crises in government funding don't simply arrive on the doorstep unannounced. Their progress toward the eventual Bang! moment is there for all the world to see. What final misdeed triggers the ultimate phase of the crisis is less predictable, but the root cause is almost...

• September 7, 2013

Unrealistic Expectations

"In the short run, the market is like a voting machine, tallying up which firms are popular and unpopular. But in the long run, the market is like a weighing machine, assessing the substance [intrinsic value] of a company."
– Benjamin Graham

Way back in the Paleozoic era (as far as markets are concerned), circa 2003, I wrote in this letter and in Bull's Eye Investing that the pension liabilities of state and municipal plans would soon top $2 trillion. This was of course far above the stated...