Dear Reader , I am writing to you in the pre-dawn from a soft chair in a Starbucks in Scottsdale, a vast improvement over the small desk in the cluttered toy room that I usually write you from on Fridays. 16 inches from my left hand is a "vente" (in the Starbucks' nomenclature, that means...
Dear Readers, Good morning! And welcome to this edition of The Room! If that salutation suggests a certain snap in my step, well, you'd be right. After all, one can't let one's attitude be overly colored by the gloom and pessimism now stalking the land. No, this is America... or, at least...
The Return of Muddle Through The dollar reaches new lows. The housing market shows no sign of a bottom. Oil almost touches $84 before backing off. Interest rates go up after the Fed cuts. So naturally the stock market keeps climbing. But then, consumer spending came in strong, employment looks like it...