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Original Link: http://www.imd.ch/research/challenges/upload/TC013_10_PDF-2.pdf

Our Copy: TC013_10_PDF-2.pdf

Back in February 1950, the first Diners Club credit card was unveiled. The Diners Club card, used mainly for travel and entertainment purposes, became the first credit card for widespread use and eventually changed the way consumers make purchases. Sixty years later, what are the state and the future of the credit card industry?

Despite the 2008 downturn being a credit crisis, not much has been said about credit card companies and their role as capital providers to individuals and households. Banks were the culprits, but also the victims of the largest drop in stock market indices in decades. Yet, the stock price performance of credit card companies which are publicly traded (American  Express, Mastercard and Visa) has been impressive. Since April 2008, with the S&P 500 index losing almost 33% on a cumulative basis, all three companies have out-performed the market with respective total returns of -2%, +29%, and -14% respectively (see the graph). The case of Visa is exceptional, as it went public in March 2008, so part of its stellar performance can certainly be attributed to its market debut.

The market performance of credit card companies is not surprising. While the reduction of interest rates resulting from the recession has allowed financial institutions to lower their borrowing costs and therefore to emerge almost harmless from the crisis, individual consumers and households seem to have not enjoyed such a favorable environment. Indeed, Visa's Net Operating Income in fiscal year 2009 was $2.0 billion, up 13% from the previous year. Competitors have not fared so great, but the outside perception is that the easy credit that financial institutions enjoy has not been transferred to households. Not to be forgotten is that credit card companies are typically owned / controlled by large banks. For instance, JP Morgan Chase is the largest shareholder at VISA, and Diners International is a fully owned subsidiary of Citibank.

How do credit card companies operate? Any credit card transaction involves -- in addition to the cardholder and the credit card company -- a merchant (let us say a retail store), the cardholder's bank (also known as the issuer in the industry), and the merchant's bank (the acquirer). A credit card company is only a network of processing services, by which issuersand acquirers transfer payment from the cardholder to the merchant. In the process, merchants pay fees for the payment processing, and cardholders pay interest on their credit card balances.

This is a very profitable business model, but it would be a mistake to assume that credit card companies issue credit cards. Nor do they determine the rates they charge to customers, or the fees that merchants pay to acquirers. Visa, Mastercard and AMEX make money from fees that issuers and acquirers pay. Such a profit generating system translates into an atypical balance sheet structure. Mastercard for instance is a $6.4 billion company (at the end of 2008), of which $4.3 billion are cash and other liquid assets, $700 million are intangibles, and $500 million deferred income taxes. On the right hand side, the company has virtually no debt, and it is financed mostly by current liabilities, and $2.0 billion in equity. Visa is even impressive, with $20 billion in intangibles out of a total size of $32 billion, of which $8 billion are liquid assets.

Who would not want to invest in companies like these? They are swimming in cash, are extremely profitable and can sail through a financial crisis by transferring their interest rate risk to customers, issuers and acquirers. Since its IPO in 2005, the cumulative return on Mastercard stock has been more than 500% (even taking into account the 2008 financial crisis!), which is equivalent to a 38% annual return.

Well, unfortunately if there is something that credit card companies do not need, it is investors. They are rich, do not need to finance heavy capital investments, and their largest owners are banks, which are indeed happy capturing most of their profit. It turns out however that Mastercard did go public, as did Visa in 2008. Their reasons were however non financial. Mastercard had a severe problem of image: in 2004 Forrester had published a survey where hundreds of customers were asked to "indicate your level of trust in ads for the following type
of products." About 69% of respondents said that they completely trusted ads by retail
companies, for instance. However, only 21% said the same for credit card companies, which
ranked the worst in a list that included movies, consumer electronics and autos. Mastercard
solved its problems by going public, earning a great reputation through its aftermarket
performance and... by putting most of the money raised in the IPO in a foundation.

Visa followed suit, essentially after witnessing the amazing performance of the Mastercard stock. But also for its owners to cash out (remember we did have to endure 2008) about $19 billion, Visa had to create an escrow account that would cover litigation (some $3 billion) started against the company by Discover and Amex, among others.

So despite the stated intention of these two companies to use IPO proceeds to create a foundation (Mastercard) or pay for lawyers (Visa), their public offerings were among the most successful of recent years (Visa's is indeed the largest IPO in the US to date). The market,  that is forward looking, cannot be easily fooled.

What would happen though if, as some commentators say, the next financial crisis is a
personal credit crisis? First of all, such a crisis seems now further away than ever. With low interest rates and social pressure, a household credit crisis would be the last event that any government could now afford. Additionally, I hope this article clarifies that it would not be the credit card companies that would suffer the most -- they are cash shielded, do not get directly impacted by the default of the final customer and are owned by banks, which are by far healthier than two years ago.

Following the launch of the first credit card 60 years ago, there is little reason to doubt that it
will continue to thrive and be a part of our every day lives for the decades ahead.

Arturo Bris is Professor of Finance at IMD. He will direct the "News Ideas in Corporate
Finance: Addressing Financing Gaps" stream during Orchestrating Winning Performance
(June 20 - 25, 2010).

He also directs the Advanced Strategic Management program and teaches on the Program for
Executive Development as well as the Strategic Finance and Building on Talent programs. 

(Thanks Harry for sending me this article!)

Jim Rogers Plans to Short U.S. Long-Term Bonds (Transcript) Video

2008-12-24 18:44:20.338 GMT

     Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers
Holdings, talks with Bloomberg's Nigel Stevenson about the
outlook for commodities, the yen and U.S. bonds in 2009.

     (This is not a legal transcript of the interview. Bloomberg
LP cannot guarantee its accuracy.)

     NIGEL STEVENSON, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Hello, and welcome to
our special program designed to prepare you and your
portfolio for the year ahead. I'm Nigel Stevenson. Well, for
the next half hour we'll be getting the first word on 2009
from an investment legend and given the current state of the
market on the economy, you don't want to miss it.

     Jim Rogers not only lived through the 70s oil price
shock, the crash of '87 and several recessions, he thrived
through them. Jim Rogers became a Wall Street legend after
co-founding the Quantum Hedge Fund in 1970.

     In the decade that followed the benchmark S&P equity
index climbed less than 50 percent, Rogers' funds gained
4,200 percent. Rogers retired as a hedge fund manager as the
age of 37 to become a private investor, author and media
commentator. Dubbed the Indian Jones of finance by Time
Magazine, he began a series of epic road trips in 1980,
initially on a motorbike through China.
    
     (BEGINNING OF AUDIO CLIP)
    
     JIM ROGERS, CHAIRMAN, ROGERS HOLDINGS: There's nothing
I enjoy more than the adventure of travelling to new places
with the wind in my face. I've always wanted to drive a
motorcycle around the world. So one day I folded up my life
as an investor and business school professor, and with my
friend Tabitha Estabrook set out to do it.
    
     (END OF AUDIO CLIP)
    
     STEVENSON: Subsequently, around the world. The trek
secured him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records
for land travel. In every port of call he conversed with
local businessmen and investors as he sort out investment
ideas. In 1998, convinced that commodities were poised for
bull run, Rogers created a commodity index with his name on
it. Over the next decade, until it's peak in July 2008, the
index gained 500 percent.
    
     In April 2006, Rogers correctly predicted that oil
would reach $100 a barrel and gold $1,000 an ounce.
Relocating his family from New York to Singapore in 2007 he
said, moving to Asia now is like moving to New York in 1907,
it's the wave of the future.
    
     Well, let's get to the man himself, Jim Rogers joins us
now from Miami. Mr. Rogers, thank you very much indeed for
joining us here once again on Bloomberg Television. I just
said it in the introduction, you've seen recessions, slumps,
crashes. You've thrived through them. How bad is it now?
    
     ROGERS: It's amazing how old I am, isn't it? I hadn't
thought about it that way - seeing I've seen more than that.
Well, this is going to be probably the worst since the
second World War as far as the American economy is concerned
and some of the - especially the U.K. - but it wont be the
worst since the second World War for the U.K. But, it's
going to be very bad for all of us.
    
     STEVENSON: People are talking about the D-word,
depression. From what you just said, it doesn't sound it's
going to be quite as bad as that.
    
     ROGERS: Well, it could well be. As you remember the
Depression - 1929 was a stock market bubble which popped. We
were going into a recession and then the politicians around
the world started making horrendous mistakes at which turned
it into a depression.
    
     It would have been just a normal recession otherwise,
but the American politicians and then the European
politicians, everybody got in the act. And, that seems to be
happening this time to Mr. Stevenson. They're making a lot
of mistakes.
    
     STEVENSON: I was going to say, it sounds like you're
expecting some of the same. Are you planning for a worse
case scenario?
    
     ROGERS: Well, I can not tell you until I see how things
unfold. Nobody knew in 1929 it was going to turn into the
Depression, but by 1931 some of the smart people had figured
it out. These things unfold. I'll have to watch and see what
happens. I'm certainly prepared for the worst, and if it
happens, I hope I take the appropriate actions.
    
     STEVENSON: And given what you heard from the central
bankers and from the politicians thus far, are you impressed
or deeply unimpressed by what you've seen?
    
     ROGERS: Well, I'm impressed - very negatively
impressed. It's astonishing how bad they're reacting this
time. It is unfathomable to me what they are doing, and you
would think that some of them would had read some history or
interpreted history properly.
    
     Mr. Obama, our new President - our new President Mr.
Obama has said - ran on a platform that he's going to do two
things. He's going to tax capital. This is a period when the
world is desperately short of capital.
    
     What a genius. And then, he's going to protect America.
Protectionism led to the Great Depression in the 1930s. So,
we've got a man now who says he's going to - in favor of
protectionism and taxing capital. If that happens, Mr.
Stevenson, it's all over.
    
     STEVENSON: Is this going to therefore change the world
economic order? You know I'm obviously thinking of China
here, for example.
    
     ROGERS: Well, of course it is. Same thing happened in
the 1930s. In 1918, the U.K. was the richest, most powerful
country in the world, by 1939 it was a shambles. There were
exchange controls, the economy was a wreck. It was a
horrible period. Same thing is in the process with America.
And, if America continues to make mistakes, you're going to
see that quick a transition.
    
     STEVENSON: You've now, obviously famously, turned your
back on the United States moving out to Singapore. What
would it take - big picture, for you to come back to the
U.S.?
    
     ROGERS: Well, I haven't turned my back on the U.S. I'm
an American citizen. I'm sitting here in Miami. I mean,
let's not get too carried away. I did move to Asia because I
see enormous opportunities there. I don't see anything - I'm
convinced that China is going to be the great country of the
21st century. I want to prepare my little girls. My little
girls were born in 2003 and 2008. I don't see any way that
America is going to become the great country in the 21st
century again.
    
     STEVENSON: Is credit the biggest issue that we all have
to work out - how it's going to be solved?
    
     ROGERS: No. No, right now what's happening is the
American government is printing gigantic amounts of money. I
think that in the end is going to be the worst problem.
They're propping up everybody in sight and throughout
history when you've done that, and you printed gigantic
amounts of money it's led to inflation and, in some cases,
runaway inflation.
    
     I think in the end the credit problem is not going to
be the serious problem. It's too bad that the American
government would not let people fail. The big problem is a)
they haven't let people fail, and b) they're printing money
to try to solve the problems.
    
     The supply/demand matrix for commodities are terribly
out of whack. All commodities are going to be in much
shorter supply for another decade or so. So, even if the
dollar goes up, commodities are going to go higher. Now the
fact that the dollar is a terribly flawed currency is just
icing on the cake.
    
     STEVENSON: Legendary investor, Jim Rogers talking to
Bloomberg almost a year ago in January 2008. He's with me
now in Miami. But of course, since then, Jim, it's been a
white-knuckle ride which is likely to come to rest with a
global recession in 2009. Your own Rogers International
Commodity Index has plummeted more than 50 percent since
July. The question, of course, is are you keeping faith with
those commodities.
    
     ROGERS: Well, faith is a terrible way to invest, Mr.
Stevenson. I hope I don't invest on faith. One needs to
invest on facts. But the facts are, during this period of
time the only thing that has the fundamentals unimpaired are
commodities. Farmers can not even get loans for fertilizer
now. Nobody can get a loan to open a (inaudible).
    
     The supply of everything is going to be even worse
shape coming out of this. The IEA recently came out with a
study showing that the world's reserves of oil are declining
at the rate of 7 percent a year. Well, you can do the
arithmetic, the supply of everything is going down - oil and
everything else. We're going to have serious, serious supply
problems before too much longer.
    
     STEVENSON: And do you see also, with the miners cutting
production across the globe, or at least they're currently
doing so, similarities of what we saw in the build-up to say
2000, where we embarked upon this amazing bull run in all of
the commodities? Do you see that happening again in a couple
of years' time once we got through this particular
recession, depression whatever you call it?
    
     ROGERS: That's what I'm trying to explain, yes. The
fundamentals for General Motors are impaired. The
fundamentals for Banc of America are impaired. The
fundamentals for zinc are improved. The fundamentals for
cotton are improved.
    
     No, no the commodities will be the place to be, if and
when we come out of it. But, even if we don't come out of
it. In the 1970s economies were bad, but commodities went
through the roof. In the 1930s, in The Great Depression
commodities were a much better place to be than stocks
because there was no supply.
    
     STEVENSON: And this is going to continue. Let's talk
about the precious metals to start with then. And gold and
silver - gold has come a long way off since you correctly
said it would go through $1,000. Can you just buy now and
say, well we'll sit on that for a given time?
    
     ROGERS: Well, Mr. Stevenson, I own some gold. And, if
gold goes - just to show you, I own some gold. If gold goes
down, I'll buy some more. If gold goes up, I'll buy some
more. No, gold, during the course of the bull market, which
has more - several more years to go, will go much higher. I
think I'll make more money, perhaps, in agriculture for
awhile, but I own some gold.
    
     STEVENSON: All right. What about platinum, for example?
Again, you talk about the motor industry catalytic convert
is clearly a huge essential part of that. But platinum, does
that have different trajectory, for example?
    
     ROGERS: Well, it's more industrial and it's certainly
more tide to the automobile industry. I'm not buying - I
don't have any platinum in my pocket to show you, but I do
own some platinum in my index. But, when and if it's time to
buy automobiles again, platinum will be a spectacular play.
    
     STEVENSON: How do you then differentiate between the
likes of the industrial metals, the nickel, copper, tin,
zinc, aluminum? They're all down massively since July, but
at what stage - what are the equations you're running to see
where the opportunities to buy are?
    
     ROGERS: Listen, I'm the world's worst market timer -
I'm the worst trader in the whole world. So, don't ask me
for the timing of any of this. But, we do know that people
are closing mines and we do know that the cost of zinc, for
instance, is below the cost of production now. Now, things
can stable over the cost of production for awhile because
often it takes - cost more to close a mine than to keep it
running at a lull.
    
     So, but eventually you will have less supply of
everything and you certainly are not going to have any new
mines open in the next several years because the economics
of opening a mine are out the window now. And, it takes ten
years to bring a mine on stream, so the reserves are going
down, the supply is going down and you're not going to have
any new mines coming on stream.
    
     STEVENSON: Have you sold any of your metals in the last
six months or so?
    
     ROGERS: No. No I haven't sold any commodities since the
bull market began. I'm not very good at that. What I try to
do is I have - I was short Fannie Mae, I was short Citibank,
I was short - still am short the investment banks.
    
     No, my way of investing is I try to be long to good
things, where the fundamentals are improving and short the
things where the fundamental things are deteriorating.
That's the way I invest and always have.
    
     STEVENSON: But you don't pick out specific metals to
say, well that particular one is going to be a problem?
    
     ROGERS: No, not right now because my lawyer wont let me
buy individual commodities because I'm always talking about
them so I buy my indexes.
    
     STEVENSON: Right. So, what are the best ways to get
exposure? Is this through the ETFs? Is that that best way of
getting through, or on the spot market? What are the methods
here?
    
     ROGERS: Well, it depends on the - knowledge. If one you
know some great deal about, zinc or lead, then perhaps you
could buy zinc or lead. But for most people, you should buy
an ETF or and ETN because those are the best - buying an
index for most people is the best way to invest in anything
- commodities, stocks or anything else.
    
     STEVENSON: So, how long do you typically hold on to
them then? It sounds to me like you've had - whatever you've
had, you've never sold. So you just keep quietly amassing?
    
     ROGERS: Yes, that's the way I invest. I like to hold
things forever. The best way for me to invest - I have
things I've owned for 30 years. I hope I own them another 30
years.
    
     I hope the fundamentals continue to be good.
Commodities, I've only owned for about ten years. I continue
to amass them, when the market collapsed in October I
covered my shorts - many of my shorts in the U.S. in stocks
and the things I started buying were commodities, China,
Taiwan and the yen.
    
     STEVENSON: Have you been buying specific metals or
specific industrial side of things, given what's happening
in China, for example?
    
     ROGERS: No, only my index. I bought the metals - the
Rogers metals index. I did buy some gold coins. I do have
gold coins, yes.
    
     STEVENSON: What about oil then? Where does that fit
into the picture from your point of view?
    
     ROGERS: Well, oil has been - it crushed as you know.
It's now below the cost of production in many places. It's
certainly cost of production for alternates energy sources.
So oil is going to make a huge comeback when it does. The
International Energy Authority, who makes the studies, went
to every oil field in the world, came to the conclusion that
oil reserves are declining at the rate of 7 percent a year.
    
     You can do the arithmetic, Mr. Stevenson. In 15 years,
there won't be any oil left, unless somebody discovers a lot
of oil quickly in very accessible areas, and the price of
energy has to go through the roof again.
    
     STEVENSON: Let's get the lotus view then if we could,
Jim, on the soft commodities. You mentioned them a couple of
times. How do you differentiate between, what is it - what
you can eat, what you can use a biofuel? How do you
differentiate?
    
     ROGERS: Well, basically agriculture is agriculture and
the forces of one affect the other. I mean, if people
produce more corn to burn as ethanol they burn - they
produce less cotton so the price of cotton gets affected. So
they all interconnect it - maybe not directly.
    
     I mean, rubber is not directly connected to cotton. But
essentially, these things are - more or less move together.
We have a shortage now of nearly everything in agriculture,
Nigel, shortage of tractors, tractor tires, wheat,
fertilizer, just about everything - seeds. We have shortage
of farmers now.
    
     Farming has been a terrible business for the last 30
years. And all the farmers in the world or many of the
farmers in the world are old men. We even have a shortage of
farmers developing.
    
     STEVENSON: You said in November, on Bloomberg
Television that you continue to buy the agricultural
commodities. Have you continued this since July at the peak,
or have you started to accelerate that now?
    
     ROGERS: Well, I didn't buy in July. In fact, I was on
Bloomberg saying I wouldn't buy some of these things as they
raced up. But, I've certainly, since the collapse in
October, there was a selling climax - maybe there was a
selling climax in the fall. So I started buying agriculture
again. That's one of the best places to buy. I think I
probably bought more agriculture than metals or energy in
the past few months.
    
     STEVENSON: So, you'll keep doing that to - as the
prices continue to mount? I mean, how do you see it shaping
up in 2009 - they're fairly depressed still?
    
     ROGERS: Well, the way I see the world, Nigel, and who
knows I've explained many times I'm not a very good market
timer. I see the rally for awhile into 2009, whether that's
January or March, I have no idea.
    
     And then, I expect to see more problems again in the
markets in 2009. So, I'm holding off as things - as prices
go up I hold off buying and if I see selling climaxes again
or panic selling then I'll probably buy more.
    
     STEVENSON: A lot of these are priced obviously in
dollars. Are you still shorting the dollar. What sort of
levels are you looking at there? No, no, no, no I've
explained many times, if there was a rally coming in the
U.S. dollar I'm terribly negative on the dollar.
    
     But right now because of this period of forced
liquidation, everybody's being forced to reverse their
positions. And that means in the dollar - they're huge short
positions in the dollar. They're all being forced to cover.
We have a very nice rally going on in the dollar.
    
     I - my plan is to use this rally, which I've explained
on Bloomberg before, my plan is to use this rally to get out
of the rest of my U.S. dollars. I hope that by this time
next year I don't own any U.S. dollars. U.S. dollars are
terribly flawed currency. It's going they way of sterling -
sterling back in the 60s and 70s. I'm sure you remember very
well what happened.
    
     STEVENSON: It wasn't very pretty. What about the long
bond as well? That's another area you're looking at.
    
     ROGERS: Well, yes I was shorting the long bond back in
October/November badly covered. I do not short the long bond
anymore, but my plan is to shorten more of the U.S.
government long bond somewhere along the line. It seems to
me that's the last bubble left.
    
     Why anybody would give money to the United States
government for 30 years at 3 percent of 4 percent is beyond
comprehension to me. And who knows how low the interest
rates will go? But, that's the last bubble left.
    
     The Federal Reserve is buying bonds. I mean,
everybody's pumping bonds like crazy. It's clearly a bubble.
And as often happens, I get hurt in a bubble because I sell
it short too soon. I did lose some money selling short the
bond, but I plan to short it again.
    
     STEVENSON: You're looking very closely at what's
happening with the yen, that seems to be the one that's
taking all the pressure at the moment. How far is that going
to go do you think?
    
     ROGERS: Well, the old high on the yen was 79 or 80 yen
to the dollar. I expect it to certainly go back to 79 or 80
to the dollar. Who knows, it could go much higher. Again,
there's forced liquidation of all positions. Everybody's
having to reverse the carry trade.
    
     They were borrowing yen; selling it. Now, they've got
to buy those yen back. So, there's a huge position that's -
and then a carry trade which is being reversed and that's
why I've been buying yen. I've been buying yen for a year or
two, as you point out.
    
     STEVENSON: You still think, though, that China is the
place to be. Clearly, the stock market might not be. So, how
do you get the exposure to China? What's the strategy there?
    
     ROGERS: Well, the best way to buy China is to buy
commodities because then you don't have to worry about
corporate governance or money supply or anything else. The
Chinese have to buy cotton. They have to buy nickel. So,
that's the best way for most people - a way in which I've
been playing.
    
     I also own Chinese shares - been buying Chinese shares
since 1999 never sold any. And, every time the market
collapses I buy more. I happen to buy individual shares and
commodities, but people can buy ETFs or mutual funds or
whatever is best for them.
    
     STEVENSON: So, what kind of Chinese shares are you
buying?
    
     ROGERS: Well, I'm buying agricultural companies. Mao
Tse-tung ruined agriculture. The Chinese government is now
spending hundreds of billions to repair agriculture
infrastructure, rebuilding China. They're spending gigantic
amounts of money. In many areas of the Chinese economy which
are going to be unaffected by the recession in the west,
they wont care what happens in the west.
    
     Now China is -  many parts of the Chinese economy are
being affected, but some of them are not going to know or
care what happens in the west in the economy because they
are so busy going to work everyday and making money. The
people who build power generation plants in China could care
less what's happening in America, they're too busy.
    
     STEVENSON: Are the authorities in China dealing with
the crisis better than their U.S. counterpart?
    
     ROGERS: Well, so far. I mean, they at least started
trying to cool things off well in advance in the United
States. Now they started reversing themselves, but not as
rapidly and dramatically as the U.S. has. I mean, I wish
they were running our central bank instead of Dr. Bernanke
who doesn't have a clue what's going on.
    
     So far the Chinese have done a better job. Have they
done a good job? Ask me in two years, I don't know. I think
they're making some mistakes, but everybody makes some
mistakes. I don't think they should be spending so much
money in such a panic, but I'm not Chinese I can't tell them
what to do.
    
     STEVENSON: Final question. Are you tempted to get on
your motorbike again and ride off around the country?
    
     ROGERS: Well, what I plan to do is when my little girls
get a little bit older, they speak Chinese, I want them to
be my interpreters and my guides and we're all going to ride
around China together.
    
     STEVENSON: Okay, Jim. Thank you very much indeed for
that. Jim Rogers. That's the third bullet on 2009 from Jim
Rogers.
    
     ***END OF TRANSCRIPT***
    
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-0- Dec/24/2008 18:44 GMT
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_faber - Profile

http://www.gloomboomdoom.com/ - Newsletter & Website

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Marc+Faber - Marc's Commentary

Thierry B. turned me onto Marc.  Marc's was in HK forever, and moved to Thailand --- beautiful house.

His Doom Boom and Gloom report is not free, but he has a bunch of past issues on his site.

Here's a couple from 2005, which eerily predict what's currently transpiring...

051009.pdf - Why the Fed has no other Alternative but to print Money!

050705.pdf - The Destruction of Old and Creation of New Bubbles!

As he's a Economics PhD, and a long-time investor/analyst, he's got some interesting things to say.

http://www.gloomboomdoom.com/public/pSTD.cfm?pageSPS_ID=4210 - How to stay well informed

He reads ---

Newspapers: WSJ (Domestic US Coverage), FT (International News), IHT (Geopolitics, assoc. w/ Wash. Post & NY Times, Sports)

Magazines: Forbes & Forbes Global, Economist (For Soc Sci), Spectator (Brit. Right-wing, high caliber contributors w/ different/controversial views)

"In general it is quite useless to read something without taking notes or filing it. Ninety-five percent of what we read in today's paper will be forgotten tomorrow morning. (Do you remember what you read in yesterday's paper?) "

http://www.gloomboomdoom.com/public/pSTD.cfm?pageSPS_ID=5200 - Marc's house in Thailand (2003-)

Here's an interesting one talking about US Dollars and Gold...
Copied/pasted the part that was the most interesting to me.

20080324 FT - FTfm - A time of golden opportunites.pdf

...cut from article...
One of the reasons why the gold price fell and then stagnated for years was that central banks, traditionally the largest holders of gold, were selling off their reserves.
Although some European central banks are still getting rid of gold bars, this is now limited by an agreement which restricts the amount all signatories can sell to 500 tonnes a year.
In contrast to their European peers, central banks in Asia with their huge foreign currency reserves, possess relatively small amounts of gold. Since the bulk of their reserves have been in dollars, they may now start to look at switching a proportion to gold.
"In a global environment where there is an increasing question mark over the status of the dollar, gold is likely to become more attractive [to central banks]," says Giles Conway-Gordon of Cogo Wolf, a California based fund of hedge funds. He cites China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan as countries that all have very low levels of gold in their reserves. "Russia has bought a tonne of gold a month for the last several months, and Qatar is doing the same. The era of the dollar hegemony is over."

A couple interesting articles from this special report --- I love the special reports. 

20080319 - FT - Special Report - Investing In Japan.pdf 
A couple of the more interesting articles in the Special Report...

Struggle to sweep away barriers to change
Foreign investment is low compared with other countries, writes Michiyo Nakamoto

Economy: Evidence of an ability to adapt
The line is that things can only get worse. But this is overdone, writes David Pilling

Mergers & acquisitions: A simple reluctance to sell to outsiders
Japan's trailblazing triangular merger may be a one-off, says Louise Lucas

Infrastructure: Public assets are a tough nut to crack
Deregulation is slowly attracting investment, says Jonathan Soble

Recruitment: Headhunters look to beat a talent crunch
Women and new retirees are targets for foreign companies, says Jonathan Soble

Corporate governance has a long way to go
There are encouraging signs that more Japanese public companies are taking notice, writes guest columnist Warren Lichtenstein