Earlier this month, Kyle Bass asked a funny question in a discussion with CNBC’s David Faber. To wit: “If some fund manager in Texas is saying that your currency is dramatically overvalued, you shouldn’t care on a $10 trillion economy with $34 trillion in your banks. I have, call it a billion - it’s so small it should be irrelevant and yet somehow it’s really relevant.”
I received an e-mail from a friend who is a Harvard graduate and an orthodox Catholic. He takes exception to R.R. Reno’s column on meritocracy, which I cited favorably today. I can’t reproduce his letter verbatim here, because he wants to protect his privacy. But I have edited it to his satisfaction, and present this version with his approval:
Authored by Mark St.Cyr,
In a stunning policy move Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda introduced and adopted negative interest rates. The word “stunning” is fitting, for just weeks prior he stated there was no need to adopt such measures. It seems by all accounts his mind changed (or was made right?) after returning from Davos.
As extensively discussed yesterday in the aftermath of the BOJ's stunning decision to cut rates to negative for the first time in history (a decision which it appears was taken due to Davos peer pressure, a desire to prop up stock markets and to punish Yen longs, and an inability to further boost QE), there will be consequences - some good, mostly bad.
As the deaf, dumb, and blind kids of the world's elite gathered in Davos to mutually masturbate over their own success, and generously drop some breadcrumbs of hope for the rest of the world, The World Economic Forum unleashed the followingg 36 quotes to sum it all up...
Session: The Global Economic Outlook
Session: The Future of Growth: Technology-Driven, Human-Centred