Previous Columns
9:00 AM EST, Wednesday, May 27, 2009. If you print money -- lots of it -- you will inflate markets. That's one reason stocks have boomed 39% (S&P) since March 6. This boom -- the fastest in the history of the world -- is putting huge pressure on money managers who've stayed out. And, as they get in, they may fuel more boom.

Stockmarkets are thus removed from the economic realities of a lousy economy. To join the stockmarket to the economy is to miss the opportunity. This thinking scares me. Puts me in doubt. And when in doubt, I'm out. But I've been wrong since March.

The big fear gong forward is inflation. Money printing. Deficits. I'm afraid of inflation. Everyone is. Everyone is aware of it. And everyone is seeking ways to protect themselves. That doesn't include treasurys. It includes:

+ Gold. (See below).
+ Silver.
+ Oil.
+ U.S. stocks
+ Asian stocks.
+ Commodities, like copper.

No one has The Answer. Except that cash, long-term, is not the answer.

I recommend you watch this Bloomberg interview with Marc Faber, editor of The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report. Click here. Faber says the U.S. will go into hyperinflation. Not as high as Zimbabwe, "but close to it."

Here's gold. The time to buy was back in 2001. Today? I'm dubious.

How we saved our banks. This book is now out, and deserves reading. I just ordered it.

The story of the book itself is fascinating. This comes from Barry Ritholtz, the author, who also writes the The Big Picture blog.

Long story short: After Bill Fleckenstein’s GREENSPAN’S BUBBLES was published, McGraw Hill asked him to do a follow up to that book.

He wisely said no.

However, Bill suggested they contact me.

Which they did. I turned the publisher down (several times). Who has time to write a book? Besides, I did not want to do a fast, rush-to-judgment type of thing. But they were tenacious in their pursuit, and I eventually succumbed to their flattery — on my terms, however, including having final edit on the manuscript. (This becomes important later on, as you will soon see).

Because of the way events played out, I ended up writing this beast three separate times. Literally: Bailout Nation was written as 3 complete books over 18 months.

The first version was a history of bailouts. I started playing with the idea of this back in October 2007. (We were short a lot of financial names then). By the Summer 2008, I had put together a broad overview covering the early 19th century, the history of the Fed, and a meaty arc from Lockheed (1971) to Bear Stearns (March 2008). It was a fairly pedestrian historical approach.

Around the time it was due (near Labor Day 2008), something funky was in the air . . . you could smell the leading edge of the approaching shitstorm. By the end of August 2008, I convinced the publisher to extend the deadline a few weeks.

Good thing I did . . . Boom! Fannie Mae blew up. Then Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America. Soon Merrill was on the ropes, followed by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, GM and GE. All hell was breaking loose. Well, I thought, at least the book will be more interesting. The expanded version of the manuscript, with greater emphasis on the latter part of 2008, was finished in December ‘08.

Or so I thought.

After I handed the book into the publisher (McGraw Hill), they let me know they had problems with my assessment of the Ratings Agencies. They were unhappy with my calling them “Pimps & Hos“, or describing their business model of rating junk bonds as AAA for big fees as “Payola.” (What else would you call it?)

Not coincidentally, McGraw Hill owns of the largest Rating Agencies, Standard & Poor’s.

My compromise was to change the tone — namely, to remove the reference to Pimps. However, in its place I was going to add publicly available data and congressional testimony, more detailed analysis, and quotations from experts. When it was finished, I found the revised section to be less vitriolic — but far more devastating to S&P. They (along with fellow rating agencies Moody’s and Fitch’s) were key enablers to the entire crisis. There were many other guilty parties, but I simply could not under-emphasize the ratings agencies.

When McGH rejected it again, I exercised my right to buy the manuscript back from them in January 2009 (I returned the advance). Numerous publishers were interested, but I went with Wiley — they have a great deal of experience publishing business/investing related books, and as a publisher, had no conflicts of interest that would interfere with telling the full story.

The third version was the charm.

By now, the amount of bailout money going to mismanaged companies, reckless speculators, and incompetent corporate executives had skyrocketed to 14 trillion dollars. This was infuriating to anyone paying attention.

Astonishing things happened as the book progresses. The more I researched and wrote, the more it was apparent we were witnessing the greatest heist ever made. By the last section of the book, history’s biggest transfer of wealth — from the taxpayer to the Banksters — was taking place. Trillions were being shifted from the responsible to the reckless, from the prudent to the incompetent. It was infuriating — and you will see as the book progresses my initial academic tone gets replaced with greater snark and anger.

I not only had my ending, I had a new cause — exposing those who caused this mess, be they Democrat or Republican, Corporate CEO or derivatives trader.

I hope the end result is something that will inform and illuminate, while entertaining you along the way . . .

You can pick up a copy of Bailout Nation at Amazon for $16.47. There's no Kindle edition.

New York real estate rents drop. A recent deal: A prime building two years ago was renting at $110 a square foot a year. It just rented space at $45. That's a huge 60% drop. It gets worse. The $45 deal included six months of free rent, and $75 per square foot of tenant improvements. The $45 was a gross lease. That means the landlord pays the taxes and operating expenses. If you figure all that, spread it over 10 years, you effectively have a deal where the landlord is actually putting less than $5 a square foot into his pocket.

Why do such a lousy deal? Because the deal pays the landlord's expenses. It allows him to hold the building for a little longer, maybe. We don't know what the interest payments are.

The greatest computing bargain in the history of the world. This is my country desk. Figure $250 a Samsung monitor, and $130 for two ViBook USB drivers. Hence the desk's electronics total $760. The wooden 10" shelves cost whatever your local carpenter charges.

One little laptop, the Lenovo ThinkPad X61 (and now the Lenovo ThinkPad X200) drives its own screen and these three external ones.

This gadget called a ViBook drives two of the external monitors. Windows drives the one in the middle. Email on one screen. A browser on another. An Excel spreadsheet on another. Stocks on yet another. Slide anything to anywhere. You get the idea. You can pick two of these ViBooks up from Amazon for $129 each. You need one ViBook for each screen you want to drive. I cannot recommend a gadget more highly.

French Tennis Open 2009 TV Schedule -- US broadcast times

Wednesday, May 27
5:00 am - 12:00 PM: French Open Early Rounds - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - LIVE
12:00 PM - 6:30 PM: French Open Early Rounds - ESPN2 + ESPN2 HD- LIVE and tape
6:30 PM - 5:00 AM: French Open “Tonight” show - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape

Thursday, May 28
5:00 am - 12:00 PM: French Open Early Rounds - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - LIVE
12:00 PM - 6:30 PM: French Open Early Rounds - ESPN2 + ESPN2 HD - LIVE and tape
6:30 PM - 5:00 AM: French Open “Tonight” show - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape

Friday, May 29
5:00 am - 12:00 PM: French Open Early Rounds - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - LIVE
12:00 PM -6:30 PM: French Open Early Rounds - ESPN2 + ESPN2 HD - LIVE and tape
6:30 PM - 5:00 AM: French Open “Tonight” show - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape

Saturday, May 30
5:00 am - 1:30 PM: French Open Early Rounds - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - LIVE
1:30 PM - 4:30 PM: French Open Early Rounds - NBC - LIVE
4:30 PM - 5:00 AM: French Open “Tonight” show - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape

Sunday, May 31
5:00 am - 3:00 PM: French Open Early Rounds - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - LIVE
3:00 PM - 6:00 PM: French Open Early Rounds - NBC - tape
6:00 PM - 5:00 AM: French Open “Tonight” show - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape

Monday, June 1 - RD. of 16
5:00 am - 12:00 PM: French Open Round of 16 - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - LIVE
12:00 PM - 6:30 PM: French Open Round of 16 - ESPN2 + ESPN2 HD - LIVE and tape
6:30 PM - 5:00 AM: French Open “Tonight” show - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape

Tuesday, June 2 - QUARTERS
8:00 am - 12:00 PM: French Open Quarterfinals - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - LIVE
12:00 PM - 6:30 PM: French Open Quarterfinals - ESPN2 + ESPN2 HD - LIVE and tape
6:30 PM - 5:00 AM: French Open “Tonight” show - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape

Wednesday, June 3 - QUARTERS
8:00 am - 12:00 PM: French Open Quarterfinals - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - LIVE
12:00 PM - 6:30 PM: French Open Men’s Quarterfinals - ESPN2 + ESPN2 HD - LIVE and tape
6:30 PM - 5:00 AM: French Open “Tonight” show - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape

Thursday, June 4 - SEMIS
5:00 am - 8:00 AM: French Open Men’s Doubles Semifinals - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - LIVE
8:00 am - 1:00 PM: French Open Women’s Semifinals - ESPN2 + ESPN2 HD - LIVE
1:00 PM - 6:30 PM: French Open Women’s Semifinals - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape
6:30 PM - 5:00 AM: French Open “Tonight” show - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape

Friday, June 5: - SEMIS
5:00 am - 10:00 AM: French Open Women’s Semifinals - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape
10:00 am - 1:00 PM: French Open Men’s Semifinals - NBC - LIVE
4:00 PM - 11:00 PM: French Open Men’s Semifinals - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape
11:00 PM - 6:00 AM: French Open Men’s Semifinals - TENNIS CHANNEL (HD) - tape

Saturday, June 6: - FINAL
9:00 am - 12:00 PM: Women’s FINAL - NBC - LIVE

Sunday, June 7: FINAL
9:00 am - 2:00 PM: Men’s FINAL - NBC - LIVE

I'm late this morning. I'll make up the jokes tomorrow. I'm having trouble with the configuration on this new laptop.

This column is about my personal search for the perfect investment. I don't give investment advice. For that you have to be registered with regulatory authorities, which I am not. I am a reporter and an investor. I make my daily column -- Monday through Friday -- freely available for three reasons: Writing is good for sorting things out in my brain. Second, the column is research for a book I'm writing called "In Search of the Perfect Investment." Third, I encourage my readers to send me their ideas, concerns and experiences. That way we can all learn together. My email address is . You can't click on my email address. You have to re-type it . This protects me from software scanning the Internet for email addresses to spam. I have no role in choosing the Google ads on this site. Thus I cannot endorse, though some look interesting. If you click on a link, Google may send me money. Please note I'm not suggesting you do. That money, if there is any, may help pay Michael's business school tuition. Read more about Google AdSense, click here and here.