By Cees Bruggemans, Chief Economist FNB.

After a great fall (2008), success in arresting the fall and stabilizing the economy on a low level of capacity utilization (2009), growth prospects tend to be very promising as slack resources as well as new inputs will be available to be put to work. Demand needs to grow in order to put such available resources to work.

Potentially this will be so for years to come (2010-2020) as any new supply imbalances eventually ending the next growth expansion (balance of payments, inflation) could remain manageable for the time being.

This, in a nutshell, is the case for growth.

It then gets better, but it also gets worse. For the global environment looks even better than this simple base case, offering piggyback opportunities for small open economies like ourselves.

This very favourable global environment, however, may also prove to offer a too rich

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Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, Joshua Foust, who also blogs on Central Asia at Registan.net, takes a look at the lobbying, PR, and information war going on between Russia and Georgia, and finds that Tbilisi is more or less winning the effort to shape the narrative in the English-language media.  Foust's point isn't so much whether or not it was Russia or Georgia at fault for the war, or who the bad guy is, but rather that we had better steel ourselves with a good dose of cynicism in the face of so much effort and money being thrown behind all the media influence trafficking by both parties.

Georgia has also intensified its campaign in the English-language Web--sites like GeorgiaUpdate.gov.ge exist to advance the Georgian government's point of view to a Western audience. The Georgian government has also

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What’s the true cause of inflation? Jimmy Carter underrated? Really? And what makes Von Mises right after all these years? Read on to find out…Thank you (once again) for all your excellent responses on the Obama-Carter connection. When your thoughts and comments roll in, my only lament is a lack of space in which to reply.

Well, that and one other small quibble. Where are all the haters? Surely more of you must think I’m off my rocker, or otherwise dead wrong somehow. Let’s start off with a rare bit of snark just for sport…

The lessons learned from the past…8 years of taking us down…and now a dynamic leader trying to pull it together…and presenting a better picture of America to the world…now, can you or Rush Bimbo do that?

– TD reader NB

Rush who? I’m not up on the guy, as I haven’t paid attention to him since the early ’90s.

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The other day I had lunch with a “brain trust,” of sorts.  Participants included a retired executive from an aerospace company.  This guy helped design and build many of the reconnaissance satellites that the U.S. has launched.  There was a senior executive from a large steel company.  There was a venture capitalist who made his first $500 million in the software industry, and who now has much of that wealth spread around in biotech and nanotech startups.  There was a former senior political appointee who worked in the Treasury Department.  And then there was me.

“Climate Change” Driving Policy Now

According to the satellite builder, the dominant elements of the political and media culture are “completely in the tank” when it comes to believing in the dangers of “climate change.”  It’s not as if climate change is demonstrably true, he pointed out.  There are valid scientific data from both sides of the

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Let’s talk about what money is. For some people it’s M-1 or M-2, and they worry that the money supply is growing too much. For some people it’s gold; gold is the only real currency. I think those ideas each have their place, and there’s some truths to them, but they focus us on the wrong thing.

It’s a bit misleading to talk about money supply, because what money really is is roughly $2 trillion of cash and then $50 trillion in credit. Because what do the banks do? They take deposits in and then they borrow money to leverage them up. I take my credit card and I spend with it. I borrow against a house. I have an asset that rises, and I borrow against it.

We have two trillion dollars of actual cash propping up $50 trillion in credit. If we all

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The Russia-Ukraine battle for natural gas played out well last year for these three natural resource stocks, and it’s happening again. J. Christoph Amberger of Today’s Financial News predicted back in November of 2008 that the Ukraine would go into a “deep freeze” and that forecast came to pass at the beginning of this year.

Here he tells us that his recommended stocks have “upward potential” and that “The Eastern European energy crisis is far from over… and I believe we will be served well holding on to these stocks for the long term!” This from Amberger:

Back in November 2008, I went on record predicting an energy stand-off between Russia and Ukraine that would pitch Europe into a deep freeze. (Here’s what I said.) It came to pass on New Year’s Eve, when Russia shut down gas deliveries to Ukraine.

On the surface, this

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As I ponder the twin taxpayer shakedowns of the “stimulus” bill and “Son of TARP,” a couple of impertinent questions cross my mind.

First, has anyone else noticed that the two places the president has visited to pimp the stimulus are poster children not only for economic hardship, but for malinvestment?

Today the president visits Lee County, Florida — home to a stunning overbuild of single-family homes.  Southwest Florida might well be the epicenter of this bubble, and Lee County might have it worst in that region.  Lee County was where people built and bought when they couldn’t afford to build or buy in Collier County next door.  Can’t afford Naples?  There’s always Fort Myers.  Easy financing available.

The unspoken assumption behind the president’s visit — and much of the thinking of his advisers — is that a “floor” must be put under housing prices.  That is, the only way to make the

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Step Right Up Obama – Get your TARP Funds here…

by William Patalon III, Executive Editor, Money Morning

Editor’s Note: Yesterday, Money Morning took another look at the TARP controversy and some of the newest developments. As Obama has asked President Bush to prompt Congress to release the second part of these funds, we feel it’s something investors need to keep an eye on. The impact of the original stimulus has helped stabilize our banks, but it also rewrote the playing field. And its these kinds of fundamental shifts that all investors need to be aware of.

Obama Requests Release of Second Half of TARP

On Monday, President-elect Barack Obama asked Congress to release the remaining $350 billion in bank bailout money that’s part of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

In a letter addressed to the leadership of both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives,

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Friday December 19, 2008 Navivest

Concerned over the effects of what a “disorderly bankruptcy” of the country’s major automakers would have on the nation, President George Bush today announced an emergency bailout of the industry Friday.

Under the emergency plan, $17.4 billion in rescue loans will be made to the General Motrs (GM) and Chrysler and in return, they would have to make concessions that helps them get back on track.

Ford (F) is not applying for bailout aid at this point, as it is in a slighgtly better position, but may apply for a $9 billion line of credit.

The $17.4 billion is more of a bridge loan that would help the automakers have enough cash on hand for the next three months and it is hoped that when President-elect Barack Obama takes office on January 20th, his administration will come up with a more permanent plan to help out

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“Keynesian” economics has been given a bad name by unprecendeted government bailouts this year. But John Maynard Keynes was also a great investor says Dr. Mark Skousen. His strategy was to buy preferred stocks of quality, high-dividend companies when everyone else was selling. Mark says today’s investors can follow this advice for big long-term gains with the John Hancock Preferred Income Fund (NYSE:HPI).

This from Investment U:

“Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” ~John Maynard Keynes, 1936

When it comes to the best strategy to use during a treacherous bear market, I turn to advice from my favorite guru. The British economist, John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), made a ton of money during the Great Depression.

It was he who turned the world upside down in

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