links for 2010-03-18

A rise in the yuan would be a disaster for labor-intensive Chinese exporters, a semi-official trade group said on Thursday, as frictions grow with the U.S. and other Western powers over Beijing's stable currency policy.

It’s hard to disagree with BusinessWeek’s characterization of the 2000s as stocks’ “loss decade.” Or with Zvi Bodie’s analysis that stock risk is dangerous even to investors with a 10-year or more horizon. Bodie, a professor at Boston University, has been engaged in a long-term campaign to get investors—and financial professionals—to invest based on the
mantra “safety first.” And it’s all about using the science, he says.

China is in the midst of “the greatest bubble in history,” said James Rickards, former general counsel of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management LP. The Chinese central bank’s balance sheet resembles that of a hedge fund buying dollars and short-selling the yuan, said Rickards.

The Chinese central bank’s balance sheet resembles that of a hedge fund buying dollars and short-selling the yuan, said Rickards, now the senior managing director for market intelligence at McLean, Virginia-based consulting firm Omnis Inc.

It's the biggest "doughnut hole" of them all: Members of the middle class are losing their health insurance faster than any other income group, according to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.