Welcome to Dan Alpert’s Two Cents on EconoMonitor.com
Welcome to Dan Alpert’s Two Cents on EconoMonitor.com. This blog will give you access to material I publish at Westwood Capital, LLC – the New York-based investment bank I co-founded in 1995 – as well as periodic musings that will be posted only here (generally derived from my ongoing conversations with economists, policy experts, investors and members of the business media).
Since early 2007, I have been writing on both domestic and global macroeconomic issues, particularly with regard to the impact thereof on the U.S. residential and commercial real estate sectors, the banking and non-banking financial sectors, regulatory/political oversight of the financial sector (or the lack of same) and the integration of developed and emerging markets and other cross-border macro issues. With over 30 years of investment banking and industry experience, and an educational background in public policy and economics – the foregoing are the areas where I believe I can contribute most to the debate that is EconoMonitor.com.
Occasionally, forgive me, I do get dragged into broader issues – and feel compelled to comment on those as well. But I will post here only when I really have something to say that is well thought through and sufficiently researched to add significant value to your understanding of the enormous paradigmatic changes that are at the center of the confusion that has reigned since the collapse of the debt bubble and the commencement of the Great Recession.
I invite your comment and dialog. The U.S., where I live, and the broader world in which we all work and trade, are both adjusting to circumstances and forces that are not completely comparable to prior historical periods. Nor do many of the absolutes ascribed to the various schools of economic thought bear up under the stresses derived from a global economy in which the 660 million inhabitants of the developed nations find themselves, directly or indirectly in relatively sudden competition with some 3.3 billion people in the BRIC nations who are eager for a higher standard of living and willing to work hard (and, in some cases, very cheaply) for it.
So, above all, this period calls for fresh thought and a willingness to call into question outdated economic theory and policy responses. We have, globally – and particularly in the world’s largest economy—been subject to unprecedented secular changes that have produced extraordinary booms and busts often misattributed to cyclical phenomena. So bear with me as we draw back the curtain; look under the hood; and bust a few ideological chops in pursuit of not only knowledge, but of workable solutions to the complexities facing both sides of the economic divide.
Thanks to Nouriel Roubini and his organization at Roubini Global Economics for inviting me to toss in my two cents at EconoMonitor.com.
Comments are closed.
