Too Much Money.

Economist Andy Xie recently remarked that the world's biggest problem is "too much money," which is a bit flip, but neatly sums up the strange state of the post-bubble era. The crash that began in early 2000 has destroyed trillions of dollars in wealth, but left many trillions more homeless, desperately searching for a return to good times. With all the major economies in a rare and persistent funk, there is no haven, much less an easy road to riches. So investors are chasing madly from U.S. stocks to bonds and back, from Chinese tech stocks to Czech real estate and South African gold mines, creating what Xie's boss at Morgan Stanley, Stephen Roach, recently called ...