About Bernanke’s 100% confidence…

On 5th December 2010, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke gave an interview to 60 minutes. The whole thing seemed like a choreographed show, but this exchange with 60 minutes’ interviewer Scott Pelley took me aback:

Scott Pelley: “You have what degree of confidence in your ability to control this?”
Bernanke: “One hundred percent.”

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Inflation might decimate your wealth

In February this year, we wrote that the sovereign debt crisis, pervasive in the developed world, was “certain to lead at some point to a prolonged period of inflation.” We are now in the early stages of that period and an acceleration of inflation is now virtually certain. Unless investors move aggressively to protect their wealth, they are likely to lose 50% or more of their wealth’s purchasing power in the coming years.

Economy, market manipulation and inflation

Commodity and capital market behaviour seems to be diverging ever further from any notion of rationality. Increasingly, participants are suspecting foul play and manipulation by powerful interests as a possible explanation for this. Such allegations are nothing new, but of late, much evidence has surfaced substantiating the suspicions. The tricky bit is figuring out who is doing this and to what ends. While some hedge funds got caught manipulating prices, I believe that the chief culprits are the NY Federal Reserve and its too-big-to-fail owners. As to their objectives,

Market risk, hedging & shareholder value

Strategic risk management is among the most powerful ways for companies to upgrade their competitive edge, boost profitability and enhance shareholder value. This is especially true for commodity-related industries where exposure to volatile prices of commodities, foreign currencies or interest rates represents some of the main sources of risk. However, such a business should not seek to eliminate the price risk as this would also eliminate one of the strongest drivers of profitability and value creation.