Stilltitled

The rebalancing of relative economic power is not only alive but gaining momentum. Average investors need to make sure that they are not hostage to an outdated conventional wisdom that underexposes them to this phenomenon.
—Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co

The BRICs are putting the U.S. on notice that there has to be a cutback on spending and get their house in order. This isn’t an effort to topple the dollar. Any attack on the dollar will hurt them. But they want to make sure this kind of mess doesn’t happen again.
—Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management, $20b AUM, emerging markets

Traditional ad campaigns are good at building brand awareness, but not among younger people. To reach them, you want to seem edgy. How do you make the Corolla seem irreverent? You can’t fake that; you actually have to be that way.
—Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger

After the last home price boom, which ended about the time of the 1990-91 recession, home prices did not start moving upward, even incrementally, until 1997.
—Shiller, from the NYT

we should come away from Mr Bernanke’s testimony with at least two conclusions: the chairman seems more cautious about the growth outlook when compared with other recent public statements; and he wants to push fiscal sustainability issues clearly away from the Fed’s domain and back where they belong, with Congress and the administration.
—Mohamed El-Erian

Prior to 2009, it was enough to count on the recycling of the U.S. trade/current account deficit to fund Treasury borrowing requirements. Now, however, with that amount approximating only $500 billion, it is obvious that the Chinese and other surplus nations cannot fund the deficit even if they were fully on board – which they are not. Someone else has got to write checks for up to $1.5 trillion additional Treasury notes and bonds.

…the buyer of last resort in recent months has become the Federal Reserve, with its publically announced and near daily purchases of Treasuries and Agencies at a $400 billion annual rate.
—Bill Gross

Productivity – 1Q09, Quarter over Quarter
—+1.8% in the business sector, on an annual basis, which was “greater than preliminary estimates reported on May 7, due solely to revisions to output growth.”
—Manufacturing showed declines of 2.7% and 10.4% in manufacturing and durable goods manufacturing, respectively. Productivity in nondurable goods manufacturing grew by 1.9%.
—Output Decreased 7.2%, but manufacturing output decreased 21.5% and hours decreased 19.5%. “These were the largest-ever declines in the output and hours series” since 2Q87.
—Productivity at non-financial companies decreased 2.1% in the first quarter

We’ve gone now for a period of three months in the absence of any of that news. And I actually don’t think there is another shoe to drop or another scare headline out there. And the history has said that is a time to buy.
—Jeremy Siegel