Bloomberg interview with Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson speaks with Bloomberg TV in Aspen, CO. A few important points from Niall in this discussion:

· We're living through one of the great financial crises in history, comparable in magnitude to the Great Depression of 1930s or any of the crises of the 19th century.

· After a banking crisis such as this, government debt "has a tendency to explode". Historically, financial crises have seen a debt crisis, followed by inflation.

· Danger of overdoing the parallel with 1930s. We (USA) now have a huge structural deficit and a "mounting public debt". The bigger danger is with longer term inflation and higher interest rates due to reckless efforts to stimulate the economy.

· We still have functioning globalization, and yet this global financial crisis has been met with fragmented, national efforts to thwart the economic fallout.

· Generals are famous (historically) for fighting the last war; similarly, regulators will try to solve the last crisis. These attempts may prevent a repeat of this exact style of crisis, but will give rise to a new set of problems leading to another style crisis. You can't regulate financial crises out of existence.

Enjoy the interview, and see our related posts for more commentary and interviews with Niall.

Related articles and posts:

1. Barron's interview with Niall Ferguson - Finance Trends.

2. Niall Ferguson: "What Price Liberty?" - Finance Trends.

Seth Klarman: Margin of Safety (pdf)

Welcome, readers! Signup for free email updates at the Finance Trends Newsletter . Update: PDF links removed due to DMCA notice. Please see our extensive Klarman book notes below. New visitors, please check the Finance Trends home page for all new posts. Here's something for anyone who has been trying to get a look at Seth Klarman's now famous, and out of print, 1991 investment book, Margin of Safety . My knowledge of value investing is pretty much limited to what I've read in Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor (the book which originally popularized the investment concept of a "Margin of Safety"), so check out the wisdom from Seth Klarman and other investing greats in our related posts below. You can also go straight to Ronald Redfield's Margin of Safety book notes . Related posts: 1. Seth Klarman interviews and Margin of Safety notes 2. Seth Klarman: Lessons from 2008 3. Investing Lessons from Sir John Templeton 4.

Moneyball: How the Red Sox Win Championships

Welcome, readers . T o get the first look at brand new posts (like the following piece) and to receive our exclusive email list updates, please subscribe to the Finance Trends Newsletter . The Boston Red Sox won their fourth World Series title of t he 21st century this we ek. Having won their first Se ries in 86 years back in 200 4, the last decade-plus has marked a very strong return to form for one of baseball's oldest big league clubs. So how did they do it? Quick background: in late 2002, team own er and hedge fund manager, John W. Henry (with his partners ) bought the Boston Red Sox and its historic Fenway Park for a reported sum of $ 695 million. Henry and Co. quickly set out to find their ideal General Manager (GM) to help turn around their newly acquired, ailing ship. This brings us to one of my fav orite scenes from the 2011 film , Moneyball , in which John W. Henry (played by Ar liss Howard) attempts to woo Oakland A's GM Billy Beane (Brad Pi

William O'Neil Interview: How to Buy Winning Stocks

Investor's B usiness Daily founder and veteran stock trader, William O'Neil share d his trading methods and insights on buying winning stocks in an in-depth IBD radio interview. Here are some highlights from William O'Neil's interview with IBD: William O'Neil's interest in the stock market began when he started working as a young adult. "I say many times that I didn't get that much out of college. I didn't have much interest in the stock market until I graduated from college. When I got married, I had to look out into the future and get more serious. The investment world had some appeal and that's when I started studying it. I became a stock broker after I got out of the Air Force." He moved to Los Angeles and started work in a stock broker's office with twenty other guys. When their phone leads from ads didn't pan out, O'Neil would take the leads and drive down to visit the prospective customers in person.

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