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Blogger Pater Tenebrarum
of Acting Man put it nicely today:
Since Mario Draghi "bought" European
bankers and politicos a summer vacation by promising to pull out all the
stops to save the Euro, this blog will take a break (not a vacation) for a
week from the nauseating ongoing melodrama of international finance and
instead offer reviews of the other bloggers and podcasters out there that I
follow.
1. Outstanding for consistent
excellence, acuity, clarity, and the milk of human kindness is the McAlvany Weekly Commentary. David McAlvany manages an investment
company out of Durango, Colorado, with an emphasis on precious metals. His
interview subjects are high-caliber figures often outside the posse of usual
suspects making the rounds elsewhere on the web. He speaks beautifully in
complete sentences, shows enough emotion to come off as sympathetically
human, and has an equally intelligent sidekick in Kevin Orrick. Together they
present the most coherent view of money and politics on the web. A Christian
enthusiast, he admirably keeps religion mostly out of the script.
2. For years, The Automatic Earth
has presented the most consistently intelligent, wide-ranging, and
intellectually rigorous view of the overall ongoing financial fiasco in the
written blog format. Until the past year, most of the commentary was written
by the droll Raul Ilargi Meijer. Now he is joined
by the brilliant energy and finance analyst Nicole Foss and young Ashvin Pandurangi. Their
combined point of view is staunchly deflationist. They do immense amounts of
homework, cut through all the bullshit to the dense core of our troubled
reality, and publish several times a week. The title of the blog comes from a
Paul Simon lyric out of Graceland.
3. Zero Hedge. The mysterious person(s) behind this massive continuous stream of
reports and analysis from the loony bin of Wall Street and beyond has a manic
edge but accurately reflects the madness of the current situation. Zero Hedge seems to post virtually around the clock, every day.
They are relentless and hugely comical, with exactly the right sharply
malicious overtones required in these evil times. The characters who infest
their comment section are some of the worst vermin in trolldom.
4. Mish's Global Analysis. I don't know how Mike Shedlock
("Mish") does it. He puts out two or three commentaries a day as
well as holding down a regular job. His great service to us is providing the
best breaking analysis of breaking news, that is,
making sense of events that are often mystifying -- since mystification is
one of the prime tactics of financial playerdom in
these dark, non-transparent times -- and getting it done in a very timely
way. The upshot is that few of the dodges and ruses emanating from the money
world get by this guard-dog, to the huge benefit of us civilians.
5. Charles Hugh Smith's blog, Of Two Minds, manages to publish
keenly insightful analysis practically every day in the form of essays that
tend to follow big picture themes: governance, energy, taxation, culture, electoral politics. Smith's penetrating, dogged analysis
connects vast constellations of dots between the forces that are shattering
late industrial economies. He apparently does it all by himself and has also
produced several excellent books that form a rich matrix of understanding for
anyone trying to make sense of the epochal changes coming down on us.
6. Naked Capitalism is Yves Smith's daily roundup of first rate essays on disasters of
banking, including her own forceful callings-out of the ubiquitous misconduct
that surrounds her on Wall Street where she works. Her writing is fluent and
clear on subjects that would otherwise appear hopelessly abstruse, which is
especially valuable where complexity is a cover for misbehavior.
7. In an earlier incarnation of this
life, Chris Martenson was a PhD biochemist toiling for da man in the corporate swamps of
Connecticut. He literally dropped out and reinvented himself as a blogger /
podcaster when the peak oil and debt trap equation startled him into
recognizing that the reigning system of political-economy's days were
numbered. Since then, he has produced perhaps the best book on the failures
of contemporary finance, The Crash Course, and has lately ginned up an
excellent weekly interview podcast that should be indispensible.
8. The Archdruid
Report. To the casual observer John Michael
Greer would seem an odd figure, being a long-bearded, shambling, threadbare
enthusiast of things druidical (whatever they are), but he's also about the
most humane, articulate, and lucid observer of the crumbling economic and
political scene from the realm of totally outside the box. He puts out a
beautifully crafted essay every Thursday from the backwater of Cumberland,
Maryland, and his view of where the human race is headed is sobering,
reassuring, and full of authentic empathy for our multiple predicaments.
9. Jim Willie's Hat Trick Letter at The Golden Jackass Report is a deep, complex, often savage dissection of financial reality that
always manages to illuminate new angles on the giant hairball of lies and
swindles that the money world has become in our time. He writes in a singular
telegraphic style that is delightful to read in a way similar to the
pleasures of watching certain horror movies. He assumes that his readers
already know a lot and can follow the often recondite pathways of financial
discourse that he is such an excellent guide to
10. The Keiser Report with Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert. Stacy is the straight-person to
Max's antic persona. But no one has flogged the evil-doers of banking as hard
and unrelentingly as Max, who worked on the inside of the investment racket
until driven by outrage to become one of its fiercest attackers. His perch in
Paris gives him a front-row seat on the shenanigans now unraveling
civilization in the Eurozone, but he shines his lamp under the rock of Wall
Street regularly and loves to put the wicked Jamie Dimon
of JP Morgan in the spotlight.
11. King World News. Eric King is the reigning gold bug of podcastdom.
While he unabashedly "talks his book," one gathers he does it
because he sincerely believes in the arguments for precious metals (as I do)
and he brings out around five punchy interviews a week with a revolving cast
of fellow gold bugs and other generally intelligent high level players in
that world - though I could do without the snide Gerald Celente.
12. Financial Sense New Hour. Jim Puplava recently expanded his formerly
weekends-only massive three hour podcast to include premium-priced weekday
interviews with a lineup of insiders. Puplava
covers the waterfront energetically, but he has some weaknesses: 1.) his malaprop rate is staggering; 2.) he doesn't challenge
guests spouting obvious nonsense; 3.) other than being a staunch
inflationist, his views on the markets shift with whatever wind is issuing
from a guest's mouth; and 4.) he's a closet John Bircher who does an annual
summer show (any week now) featuring an appalling roster of right-wing
crazies. In a normal culture, that alone would tend to discredit all his
other worthy endeavors. His sidekick John Loeffler
sounds more consistently intelligent. Both of them are jesus
freaks, of course.
I left a few characters off the main
list, but shoutouts to CK Michaelson's
Some Assembly Required
blog, Bruce Krasting's blog, Bill Bonner's The Daily Reckoning, Whiskey and Gunpowder,
the brave Martin Armstrong, Jesse's Café Americain, Barry Ritholtz's The Big Picture, Carl Denninger, Peter Schiff, the great, sobering
Doug Noland of the Prudent Bear's Credit Bubble
Bulletin, Pater Tenebrarum of Acting Man, Doug Henwood, the savvy and beautiful Lauren Lyster, Bill Moyers... and probably several others who I am
(unfortunately) too rushed to mention.
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