The UK Telegraph (and other sources) are highlighting the rising panic about Euro area deflation. For those Austrian / hard money / gold standard / bitcoin / generally poorly informed amongst you, it’s not that deflation is itself a problem, but that it creates scenarios of debt spirals increasing the real value of debt obligations and…
I read Nazir Alli’s opinion piece on BDLive this morning. Unsurprisingly, he talks up tolling as the best way to fund roads. Now, I don’t have as strong a view as some that etolls are Universally Bad. Frankly, I also feel that many people who complain about etolls are still complaining about having to pay. The…
S&P declares Argentina to be in default for the second time in 13 years and the third in 25. Inflation is likely to hit 40% this year and the Peso has already lost a quarter of its value this year, measured against the US Dollar. Messages? This time isn’t different, sovereign debt crises happen all…
I’ve been working with a few insurers and reinsurers on credit risk recently. We’ve had plenty of reasons to think about it, what with new regulations (SAM, Basel III) and South African government downgrades. However, sometimes I get the impression that credit risk is viewed as an academic risk, as something that happens to others,…
Read the latest (14 March 2014) document from National Treasury on tax free savings vehicles for South Africa. I think it’s a fantastic idea – both from a policy perspective with carefully designed incentives to promote long-term savings and from a personal perspective. I’m definitely going to use one for my own savings. However, one…
Ok, only temporarily and the (almost) half that are banned change from day to day. A temporary increase in pollution levels has sparked the emergency measure. I’m fortunate enough to live close to where I work with the wonderful MyCiti bus available as a genuine alternative to get to work. Imagine a world where I…
I’m not really that close to developments in the Chinese economy. It is a large, complicated beast that is quite different from our own. Over the last year or so I’ve heard more and more from people who generally speak sense that the debt levels in China and the awful investment projects used to show…
Nassim Taleb, an author who usually inspires (except in his second book, Black Swans) has co-authored a paper with a long-tailed title “On the Difference between Binary Prediction and True Exposure with Implications for Forecasting Tournaments and Decision Making Research”. The paper isn’t paygated so check it out – it’s only 6 pages so definitely…
