Investing is a probabilistic endeavour. There are no certainties to speak of. We can only operate on the basis of rational analysis and prudent, considered risk. That, in turn, presumes that free financial markets are being allowed to operate. But they are not (not in the case of government debt markets, at any rate). Cash-strapped, heavily indebted western governments are rigging the bond markets for their own ends. They are keeping borrowing costs artificially low by coercing their most biddable opponents in the notionally private sector (banks and pension schemes) to hold government debt through the offices of financial repression. Their agents, in the form of central banks under their direct or indirect control, are wilfully cooperating in this scam. If private sector companies operated in this way in the management of their own debt, their chief executives would end up in a prison cell.

David Fuller's view This issue of Tim Price's letter quotes an excellent email on bonds which I posted on Friday 7th December and responded to at some length. I was very interested to see Tim's thoughts on the subject, of which the interesting paragraph above is a small portion.

I think subscribers will also be interested in Dylan Grice's "paean of praise to the humble cockroach", which Tim quotes extensively in this excellent issue.