La vita è un crinografo

Meanwhile, investors are increasingly executing their own exit strategies, buying risky assets and gold. While policymakers apply sedatives, they are opting for amphetamines. FT.com / Lex / Macroeconomics & markets - Stimulus exit strategies

The deal’s collapse marks the second failure by GM in less than two months to sell a lossmaking brand to outside investors. In October Penske Automotive Group, US dealership chain, abandoned a deal to acquire its Saturn brand because of doubts aboutsecuring a long-term supply of vehicles. FT.com / Companies / Automobiles - Koenigsegg talks to buy Saab abandoned

The Bank said that, because it was fearful that the disclosure would have damaging consequences if revealed last year, it withheld the information from the financial disclosure in its 2009 annual report. FT.com / Companies / Banks - Bank of England bailed out RBS and HBOS

CDS volumes for Italy, which has one of the highest debt burdens of the developed economies, are now the highest for an individual country, according to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. FT.com / Capital Markets - Bets rise on rich country bond defaults

This has been a revival in the bottom, rather than the top, line. According to Morgan Stanley, non-financial stocks in the S&P 500 beat third-quarter earnings growth estimates by an average nine percentage points. But the companies’ sales fell around a point shy of forecasts. A similar pattern was seen in Europe.

Either they are correct in assessing that the economy is still fragile, in which case corporate profits will ultimately disappoint. Or they are underestimating the strength of the recovery, in which case inflationary pressures will start to emerge (and bond yields will rise sharply). Markets will have a tricky time navigating between this Scylla and Charybdis in 2010.

Buttonwood: Something’s gotta give | The Economist

HEDGE-FUND and private-equity managers earn a lot of money, more than most people think justified by their contribution to society. Of course, the same could be said of rappers and sports stars. Fund managers’ pay: A defective directive | The Economist

White House officials say the US fiscal situation had no impact on Obama’s interactions in Beijing, even though some observers presented his trip as that of a debtor visiting his banker. “He pulled no punches,” said Mike Froman, a senior national security adviser. FT.com / US & Canada - Obama warns on US public debt pile

China has 98 per cent of REE production, leading the late Deng Xiaoping to remark that “the Middle East has oil, but China has rare earths

The world need not assume that China will press its monopoly economically or militarily, but remaining oblivious to the possibility is foolish, no matter how obscure or hard to pronounce these substances are. As Woody Allen once said: “Paranoia is knowing all the facts.”

FT.com / Lex / Energy, utilities & mining - Rare earth elements

Legions of investors like to operate “ex-Japan”. But Tokyo’s struggle with deflation should not be brushed aside. The root of its troubles, after all, may have been the decision two decades ago to buy stability at the cost of public finances, transferring the leverage on absurdly overvalued real estate from the banks to the government. Ring any bells? FT.com / Lex / Macroeconomics & markets - Japan, deflating

What is the definition of optimism? A Japanese equity fund manager ironing five shirts on a Sunday evening. No other market has the capacity to disappoint – or threaten jobs – quite like it.

Equities around the world have soared on the understanding that, should economies stay sluggish, governments will not raise interest rates. If growth picks up, meanwhile, the conclusion stays the same: buy stocks. That dumb but effective strategy has worked everywhere except in Japan – the only developed market in negative territory in the year to date.

FT.com / Lex / Macroeconomics & markets - Japan, deflating

Tradizione non è solo un altro termine per quell’inerzia particolarmente religiosa, ipocrita, non pensante, che spinge tante persone a estremi a cui forse non sarebbero arrivate se si fossero fermate sul serio a riflettere, a soppesare, a esaminare? Shalom Auslander - Il lamento del prepuzio

The bank said the current crisis displays “compelling similarities” with Japan during its Lost Decade (or two), with a big difference: Japan was able to stay afloat by exporting into a robust global economy and by letting the yen fall. It is not possible for half the world to pursue this strategy at the same time. Société Générale tells clients how to prepare for ‘global collapse’ - Telegraph

Qui non si tratta di una “ossessione sessuale come riflesso della paura della morte” alla Philip Roth. Qui non si tratta del mio essere fisico che anela a un’illuminazione più alta. Nella mia degenerazione non c’è nessun messaggio esistenziale superiore. Questo non è il Teatro di Sabbath, è il Privé di Shalom. Shalom Auslander - Il lamento del prepuzio

La vita è un crinografo

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - Grim truths Obama should have told Hu

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