This post provides links to some interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Andrew Bary (Barron’s): A pessimistic assessment, especially for Europe, June 1, 2009. An interview with Niall Ferguson. The Harvard professor and media star is cautious on the global economic outlook - and bleak about Europe.

• Niall Ferguson (Financial Times): A history lesson for economists in thrall to Keynes, May 30, 2009. The policy mistake has already been made - to adopt the fiscal policy of a world war to fight a recession. In the absence of credible commitments to end the chronic US structural deficit, there will be further upward pressure on interest rates, despite the glut of global savings. It was Keynes who noted that “even the most practical man of affairs is usually in the thrall of the ideas of

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This post provides links to some interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• William Poole (Financial Times): A market solution to secure banks’ future, May 21, 2009. Would bankers rather face the discipline of subordinated debt or much heavier Washington regulation, including opaque and changing rules?

• The Economist: That kitchen-sinking feeling, May 20, 2009. Japan’s woeful economic peformance may mean that things can’t get any worse.

• Michael Pettis (Financial Times): Asia needs to ditch its growth model, May 19, 2009. The basic assumption that implicitly underlay Asian development – that American households had an infinite ability to borrow and spend – has been seen as false.

• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Telegraph): Asia will author its own destruction if it triggers a crisis over US bonds, May 18, 2009. Japan beware, crashes

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American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) shares are down 50% in the last 3 months and trading under $20 a share.  Why care?  First off, Berkshire Hathaway is its largest stockholder with 151 million, or 13%, of AXP shares. Barron's says "Berkshire's stake suggests the company's stock may be near a bottom". At Barron's: American Express: Nowhere Near Its Credit Limit By ANDREW BARY

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AmEx CEO Ken Chenault is considered among the best

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Barrron’s analyst Andrew Bary sees potential in R.H. Donnelly, the publisher of yellow pages:

a. Investors long considered yellow-pages publishers stable, high-margin cash cows capable of carrying high debt loads. That perception has changed dramatically in the past year amid advertising declines and fears about whether Americans are forsaking print yellow-pages books for online searches. Reflecting investor concerns, some of R.H. Donnelley’s debt trades for just 50 cents on the dollar, which works out to a yield of over 25%. That may make the bonds a safer play than the shares, which also hold promise.

b. R.H. Donnelley is far from dead. The company expects to generate $475 million to $525 million in free cash flow this year. It has no major debt maturities until 2010. Thus, investors probably get a two-year “look” at Donnelley’s business before possible problems loom in 2010, when it will have $1.4 billion in

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