Worthwhile Reading - April 20

Feldstein: inflation is looming. Mark Thoma, Economist's View with Feldstein's FT piece, plus his own comments.

Erin go broke. Paul Krugman, NYT.

America close to the tipping point. Benign Brodwicz, The Animal Spirits Page.

Richard Bernstein: 10 guidelines learned in 20 years. via Prieur du Plessis, Investment Postcards from Cape Town.

What's the real P/E ratio? Charlie Minter and Marty Weiner, Comstock Partners, in Barron's.

Mortgage industry changes throw new hurdles in borrowers' way. LA Times.

Will demographic trends impede recovery? Yves Smith, naked capitalism.

The Fed's cash machine. The Atlantic. includes cool interactive graphic breaking down Obama stimulus and various Fed programs.

The threat of GECC's disappearing tangible common equity value. Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge.

This is getting tiresome, so please let's declare the crisis over. Michael Pettis, China Financial Markets.
a summary of his sentiment:

it is hard to take forecasts seriously when they seem to fluctuate so directly with the most current numbers, but given the history of previous long crises – everyone of which had more than one temporary rebound, sometimes very sharp, on the way down – I would be reluctant to declare my optimism without a lot more data and a real sense that the underlying imbalances had truly been resolved. I am pretty sure this hasn’t happened yet. On the contrary, I would argue that the temporary “rebound” (which seems more to be a slowdown in the rate of contraction than a real rebound) has probably been caused by little more than policies aimed at temporarily exacerbating the imbalances.... [so] more worrying, if you believe, as I do, that the fiscal response to the crisis may temporarily slow down the pace of contraction while making the ultimate cost deeper... The paths as I see it lead either to a very deep, short-term contraction followed by a healthy and balanced recovery, or to a slow contraction that may take many years and may result in much slower productivity growth over the next decade or so – perhaps we could call it a US-style crisis versus a Japanese-style crisis. “When you come to a fork in the road, take it,” advised Yogi Berra.