International Investing

Ignorance is bliss:
Consumer confidence hit a six-year high in July, a widely watched gauge of sentiment showed on Tuesday, as Americans shrugged off falling home prices to focus on a healthy jobs market, instead.The New York-based Conference Board said that its Consumer Confidence Index, rebounded to 112.6, its highest level since August 2001 when it [...]

This IPO failure has put countless other PE IPOs on ice.  Years from now this will be thought of as the beginning of the end for the money shufflers. All downhill from here:
Blackstone’s shares, currently at $24.50, have now fallen 21 percent from the $31 they debuted at last month. That means the stock is [...]

From Rick Rule, quoted in the Daily Reckoning:
First, you have to be contrarian. You have to buy them when others don’t want them.
Second, you have to buy the good ones. Most resource companies are run by incompetents, he says, or worse - “people who would normally wear a mask when they go to the 7-11.” [...]

Bloomberg
Stocks tumbled around the world and U.S. Treasuries rallied on concern higher borrowing costs will slow takeovers, spur debt defaults and curb earnings, prompting investors to flee riskier assets. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell to [...]

For several years now, six Bulgarian nurses have stood accused by the Libyan state of infecting hundreds of patients with HIV. Ergo, said the Libyan government, they must die.
Libya was not exactly forthcoming by international standards, and the EU has frothed with outrage for years, refusing to do any business with Libya until the case [...]

Colombia has smashed Latin American investment records in the past year. The tacit understanding between Alvaro Uribe and powerful right-wing paramilitary forces has granted Uribe enormous leverage in both throttling Colombian left-wing paramilitary forces and in reintegrating right-wing, AUC footsoldiers back into Colombian civil society, through a disarmament/ amnesty program.
Colombia’s “justice and peace law,” which [...]

The trend is inexorably downward.

How would a universal health care plan work in practice in the US. Wisconsin adds another chapter in the many decade history of failed socialism. From the WSJ Op/Ed page:

As if that’s not enough, the health plan includes a tax escalator clause allowing an additional 1.5 percentage point payroll tax to finance higher outlays in [...]

This NFA compliant is a fascinating read and highlights the poor use of resources by financial regulators. Instead of going after the blatantly criminal activity highlighted here, they prefer to get celebrity scalps for accounting technicalities and Section 1001 violations. Martha Stewart gets the headlines, but the faith the ability of the regulators to control [...]

John Crudele’s theory is that Bernanke is focused on the strength of the USD and using inflation as cover to take rate cuts off the table. Until Americans go on vacation they are typically unaware of shifts in currency strengths. It would take dramatic decline in the strength of the USD for most Americans to [...]