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February 13, 2012
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Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
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Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
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Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
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February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
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Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
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Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
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Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
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Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
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Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
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January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
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January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
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Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
May 23, 2006
/ 25 Iyar, 5766
World markets' wild ride: Economic volatility is back with a vengeance
By
Niall Ferguson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I think I have finally caught the Oxford English Dictionary. Look up "volatility" in the online dictionary (it's addictive, I warn you). Among the definitions you'll find are, "readiness to vaporize or evaporate," "tendency to lightness" and "capacity for … rapid movement."
Time for an update, guys. You're missing a definition of volatility that has been in daily use in the world's stock markets for years. And this kind of volatility the financial sort is giving the global economy a fright.
First, let's define volatility in a way the dictionary omits. It's a statistical measure of the frequency and amount of movement in the price of a security. If, for example, you buy a share and, during the next 12 months, its price scarcely changes, then it has low volatility. But if it jumps 5% on day one, falls 10% on day two and so on, then it has high volatility.
Last week, after years of drifting downward, financial volatility came back with a vengeance. Stock markets dived at the very moment they were approaching their pre-dot-com-bust highs. U.S. equities are down close to 4% from a month ago. In London, the drop has been just under 6%. Some emerging markets have been hit with cumulative four-week declines of 9% or 10%.
And it's not just stock markets that are suffering. Commodity prices have been on a roller coaster especially copper and gold soaring to records and then falling sharply back.
As usual, financial analysts have an explanation. The latest inflation data in the U.S. "surprised on the upside," as they say on Wall Street. Core inflation, excluding food and energy costs, is running at an annual rate of 3.2%. Surveys suggest that people expect inflation to rise higher. This puts the relatively untested chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, in a quandary. Should he set interest rates higher, to dampen inflationary expectations? Or could that spark a crisis in the already slowing U.S. housing market and a spasm of pessimism on the part of highly indebted consumers?
Such short-run explanations are characteristic of both Wall Street and London, where vast significance is often attached to a single indicator or word uttered by the Fed chairman. Question: Why, only a year ago, were so many of these same analysts happily heralding "the death of volatility"? The answer is that they were indulging in what a financier of an earlier generation, Siegmund Warburg, would have called "wishful non-thinking." Measures of volatility had declined since about 2002. The happy non-thought was that these trends could continue indefinitely.
Here's what was happening. Fears that the dot-com bust (or 9/11) might cause a 1929-style Wall Street crash were dispelled as former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan pumped low-interest liquidity from the Fed to the markets. American consumption soared as asset-price inflation moved from the stock market to the property market. Meanwhile, the possibility of a 1997-style Asian crisis receded as Greenspan's counterparts in Tokyo and Beijing accumulated huge reserves of dollars. The world's financial markets trended smoothly upward in unison, and down went volatility.
But all this was based on a manifestly unsustainable process. The booming U.S. was importing vast quantities of Asian goods, paying for them with IOUs in dollars. Driving the boom was the readiness of Americans to remortgage their houses and save not a cent of their incomes. Most economists could see roughly how but not when this spiral of international and domestic debt accumulation would end. The dollar would start to weaken. Inflation would start to creep up. The Fed would raise rates. Consumers would tighten their belts. And if any of this happened with a jolt, then volatility would be back. Textbook stuff.
Nevertheless, as often happens in financial upswings, academic theories were formulated to give the appearance of rationality to the wishful non-thinking. A new international monetary system had come into being, we were told, modeled on the postwar Bretton Woods system, in which Asians pegged their currencies to the U.S. dollar and enjoyed rapid and risk-free export growth. It was a "stable disequilibrium," others suggested, oxymoronically. The U.S. wasn't really running a huge deficit; it was exporting some magical "dark matter" not captured by the official statistics.
I, too, had a go at rationalizing the prevailing exuberance, suggesting that foreign investors might not mind lending vast sums to the U.S. at trivially low rates of return if this was a kind of tribute to the American empire, paid in return for the benefits of the Pax Americana. My point, however, was precisely that this could not go on for very long. After all, the empire can continue to collect its tribute only if the pax it provides is real and has legitimacy.
Unfortunately, the American project of transforming the greater Middle East has run into increasingly obvious trouble since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Indeed, mounting political risk in the region has been one of the drivers of higher oil prices yet another source of renewed volatility.
Come to think of it, perhaps "readiness to vaporize or evaporate" isn't such a bad definition of volatility after all.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University. He is the author of "Empire" (Basic Books, 2003) and "Colossus" (Penguin, 2004).
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05/16/06: The Cold Wars are coming
05/09/06: Many commentators are missing dangerous political shift
05/02/06: Put some sugar in your tank
04/25/06: Hu and the dog that didn't bark
04/18/06: Should Americans be less optimistic?
04/11/06: Globalization's second death?
04/04/06: So many special friends
03/28/06: Let's get it right about what has gone wrong
03/21/06: Congress is trying to give the world a globotomy
03/14/06: Lame ducks can still bite back
03/07/06: A 19th Century critique of a 21st Century president
02/28/06: The crash of civilizations
02/21/06: Not the president, but close
02/14/06: Want historic trouble? Look south
02/07/06: Greenspan advising Britain? It's housing bubbles, deficits and potential meltdowns all over again
01/31/06: Missing the Cold War
01/24/06: It's a sick, Thick World
01/17/06: Tomorrow's world war today
01/03/06: Scotland, it's over, but keep the accents
12/20/05: History, democracy and Iraq
12/20/05: History, democracy and Iraq
11/22/05: Ghost of Napoleon haunts Tony Blair
11/22/05: Can it happen in Britain too?
11/15/05: Red plus blue equals purple
11/10/05: The fires of disintegration
11/01/05: Triumph of an über-wonk
© 2006, Los Angeles Times
Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate
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