That Dripping Sound (Musical Tribute)

July 27, 2010
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Drip after drip of deflation data

Today’s release on manufacturing activity by the Richmond Fed is pretty ghastly, as you would expect given that the effects of fiscal stimulus are now wearing off at accelerating pace – before the happy handover to the private sector is safely consummated – and given that the structural East-West imbalances that lay behind the global crisis are getting worse again.

July 20, 2010
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Double dip in the Baltic

Yes, we have seen a large rise in most indicators from the depths of despair in early 2009. That does not tell us very much. Massive stimulus launched a V-shaped recovery despite the debt burden hanging over the economy. Perma-bears have always argued that this was built on unstable foundations, and would tip over as government stimulus fades.

We will find out over the next three or four months whether they are right.



There's another famous Ambrose of course.

Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary

Commerce: A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.

Debt: An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver.

Economy: Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.

Finance: The art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager. The pronunciation of this word with the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one of America's most precious discoveries and possessions.

Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

Land: A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist.

Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

Mammon: The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.

Millennium: The period of a thousand years when the lid is to be screwed down, with all reformers on the under side.

Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

Owe: To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession; it meant "own," and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities.

Railroad: The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.

Tariff: A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.

Wall Street: A symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven. Even the great and good Andrew Carnegie has made his profession of faith in the matter.