Ken Rogoff calls Adam Tooze's new book CRASHED an ambitious but flawed work

Rogoff takes Tooze to task for certain inaccuracies and omissions, including about Rogoff's own published work.

It's a longish read, but well worth it, here. And don't miss the second part, which reviews Sebastian Edwards' AMERICAN DEFAULT.

You Have Been Warned

"[T]oday’s low interest-rate dynamic is not an entirely stable one. It could unwind remarkably quickly."

-- Kenneth Rogoff, here

The 2010s Will Be Grim, a Depression of Spectacular Severity

So says Martin Hutchinson (who blames the Federal Reserve for the Great Depression) for the Asia Times:

[T]he 2010s will be a grim decade, because the transitional and wealth effects of eliminating the government debt markets that have formed the centerpiece of the last three centuries will be enormous - a Reinhart/Rogoff depression of spectacular severity.

Bond market investors, take note.

Read the rest here.

Even Ken Rogoff Knows It's A Depression But Can't Bring Himself To Say So

We're still co-dependents in the disaster when even our truth-tellers continue to insist on the euphemism which is its rhetorical basis.

Ideas have consequences, and ideas require words.

Story here.

On the knees of the gods our fates are spun.

Kenneth Rogoff on Gold

Kenneth Rogoff for Project-Syndicate.org here weighs in on the increased interest in gold, adding the not often heard warning that rising interest rates could cause the price to fall as investors invest elsewhere seeking return in the form of cash flows which an American Gold Eagle in your safe simply cannot provide.

He also notes that the long-term inflation adjusted price lags current gold prices:

At $1,300, today’s price is probably more than double very long-term, inflation-adjusted, average gold prices.

Adjusting the price of gold for inflation from its price in 1913 to 2009 would put gold at $462 the ounce last year, so at $1,300 an ounce the price is 2.8 times that already, and climbing.

Are ya feeling lucky? Well are ya?