Oh, the age-old correlation-implies-causation argument.

Please reference the blog titled "How to Spot Advocacy Science: John Taylor Edition" posted yesterday by Freakonomics.  It depicts charts prepared by Stanford professor John Taylor and acknowledged by Harvard professor Greg Mankiw (who also linked to the charts without a word about their veracity...until others publicly did so - including Krugman in his blog titled "What’s Behind Low Investment?"). 

Perhaps these two economists, and like-minded peers, will author a book titled "Predictably Disingenuous."

Below is a mini-curation of a few interesting articles addressing Barriers to Entry, Shorting Restaurant Chains, Keynesians, and our Emerald City - Seattle:

If Coventry League starts questioning practices of management or, even worse, is short a company’s securities, then it’s often a harbinger of things to come.  Please reference Coventry League (and its predecessor)’s shorts of Enron and Lehman.  We didn’t even make an effort to buy-to-close, and simply held through bankruptcy and elimination of the securities.

That said, if the following charts prepared by Mary Meeker in the document titled USA, Inc. were attributable to a company, rest assured Coventry League would be heavily short, albeit hedged.  In this case, the charts relate to a sovereign nation, which has unique alternatives versus a corporation – namely the ability to print money and create revenues (taxation).  Using these abilities to any meaningful extent exacerbates the problems, however. 

So, without further ado, please engage yourself with the referenced charts above and in the source file (or at Mish's blog) – but do so while on a ground floor office suite.