PIMCO’s Bill Gross devotes his June Investment Outlook to “the debate about the authenticity of U.S. inflation.” Gross says that this debate “has been joined by the press and astute authors such as Kevin Phillips.” (Gross calls Phillips’ new book “Bad Money,” which was excerpted in a recent Harper’s article, “as good a summer read detailing the state of the economy and how we got here as an ‘informed’ American could make.”)

Gross describes a study that compares U.S. inflation with that of 24 other nations:

These representative countries, chosen and graphed by Ed Hyman and ISI, have averaged nearly 7% inflation for the past decade, while the U.S. has measured 2.6%. The most recent 12 months produces that same 7% number for the world but a closer 4% in the U.S.

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Eighteen months ago, cheers from environmentalists and their allies greeted Sir Nicholas Stern’s report on the economics of global warming. George Monbiot has taken another look at the Stern Report and not liked what he found. Monbiot is the author of Heat, a fine book on global warming and what to do about it. He writes regularly for the Guardian and is well worth following.
-Peter D. Kinder

ZNet Commentary
An Exchange of Souls
February 19, 2008
By George Monbiot

This is a column about how good intentions can run amok. It tells the story of how an honourable, intelligent man set out to avert environmental disaster and ended up accidentally promoting the economics of the slave trade. It shows how human lives can be priced and exchanged for goods and services.

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According to The New York Observer, the Blackstone principals were not on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange when their IPO opened.

But The Man in The White Suit was. Tom Wolfe, legendary author of among others The Bonfire of the Vanities was making his first visit to the Exchange floor.

“All the years I’ve been in New York, I’ve never been on the floor of the Stock Exchange. So, a friend of mine, who knows a member, got me invited. I’m walking around and I see these television cameras. Somebody in the television crew spots me. I don’t even know where he was from. So, he says to me, ‘What do you think of this Blackstone I.P.O.?’ I’m joking, I say, ‘I think it’s the end of capitalism as we know it.’”

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Some years ago, I whined to a friend, a management consultant, about some management problems I was having. With a look of pity for the forgetful, he raised his hand and spread his fingers as far as they would go.

“What’s that mean?”

“Maslow – the span of control.”

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