By Chuck Butler

When I was young, we played a game with a song … "Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? Joey stole the cookie from the cookie jar, not me, yes you, couldn’t be, then who?" This went on with different kids' names, without anyone admitting that they had stolen a cookie from the cookie jar.

By Chuck Butler

Through the years, people have asked me why I focus on the Aussie dollar and its associated economics all the time. I always had a current reason, to rationalize why I spent so much time talking about Australia…  The land “down under” has been one of my favorite countries to follow, along with their kissin’ cousin across the Tasman, New Zealand, since I began my career trading foreign bonds in 1992.

By Chuck Butler

Thirty years is a relatively long time ... three decades… and a lot of trading days between the day the stock market saw its largest one-day decline, until now, when things seemingly know only one way, which is up.   

I was close to everything that was happening in 1987 at our little stock brokerage at the old Mark Twain Bank. Yes, this week marks the 30^th anniversary of the “Great Stock Market Crash of 1987."

By Chuck Butler

Well, I’m tired … I’m tired of talking about the problems in the U.S. economy and with debt accumulation. It’s times like this that I have to dig deep down and convince myself that readers want more information than what I’ve given them so far. So I’m going to start this week’s letter with a ditty about the national debt, and then get into some thoughts on Russia’s economy… 

By Chuck Butler

About 10 years ago, the phrase that was getting more air play than a song from the Beatles in the day, was Peak Oil…

The geologists and analysts all over the world were talking about how the oil fields of the Middle East, were drying up, and that Brazil’s offshore findings were getting more difficult to find as we went along. They gave statistics, and showed charts of the oil fields, and tried to make their point that Peak Oil was here, and that buying oil on contracts was the way to profit from this dwindling commodity.

By Chuck Butler

At my 20^th High School Reunion, I was on a committee to find our classmates. Then, being about the only person there that had public speaking experience, I was asked to give the opening remarks to the crowd. 

I decided to have some fun with it, and told my classmates that they were very difficult to find, and we had even put some of their faces on milk cartons! I would like for us to remember the long-lost milk carton… Nowadays milk is delivered in plastic jugs, so it would be difficult to put someone’s face on a milk jug these days!