By Charles Sizemore⋅ September 3, 2010 - If you think that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is unpopular, consider the tragic case of Takahashi Korekiyo, who served as Bank of Japan governor from 1911-1913 and as finance minister and prime minister in the 1920s and 1930s.  Gillian Tett recounts his story in today’s Financial Times.

By Rodney Johnson⋅ September 1, 2010 - For years we have talked about deflation - the prospect of a shrinking economy, marked by lower prices, less credit, and falling income.  A deflationary period is marked by what is called the “vicious cycle,” where falling purchases by consumers leads businesses to lower prices for goods, which leads to less revenue for companies, which leads them to lower wages that are paid to workers, which leads the workers to buy less stuff, thereby causing prices to fall again, thereby completing and continuing the cycle.  This is the opposite of the “virtuous cycle,” which goes the other direction, where higher sales lead to growth at the company and higher wages, which lead to higher sales, and so on.

23 Aug 2010 02:09 PM PDT - HS Dent -  “Individual investors are fed up with the stock market,” writes TechTicker.  “Burnt by 10 years of negative returns, two crashes, and a current economy mired with high unemployment and lackluster growth, many are throwing in the towel.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, retail investors have instead poured their funds into bonds in record numbers, helping to send yields to new lows.