The Big Picture Conference 2011

Catherine Mulbrandon, creator of the blog Visualizing Economics, illustrates the distribution of income in the U.S, comparing the earnings of the top one percent to those of the bottom 99.

Paul Brodsky, CEO of QB Asset Management, argues that no major currency offers a safe harbor and that our debt-based monetary system is no longer working. "Today's competitive currency devaluations are tantamount to a highbrow food fight among trade partners," argues Brodsky.

Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak + Co., discusses the potential for a fall melt-up in the stock market. Boockvar predicts that the bull market in hard assets and commodities is going to continue to boom.

Barry Ritholtz, author of Bailout Nation, describes one human tendency that can hinder successful stock trading: our preference for narratives over data. When an analyst or CEO tells a convincing anecdote, he explains, stockholders are likely to trust the narrative over objective data.

Henry Blodget, editor and CEO of The Business Insider, and Howard Lindzon, co-founder and CEO of StockTwits, share advice about how to stand out in the sea of social media. "Speaking from the heart, attacking an issue," advises Blodget, who describes a recent post by a former broker against Bank of America that garnered over 100,000 views in the twittersphere.

Yahoo! Finance economics editor Daniel Gross argues that the impact of social media on financial markets is as a faster, cheaper method of distributing information. "When the earthquake happened in New York, you knew about it from Twitter several minutes before you knew about it from anywhere else," says Gross.

James Bianco, president of Bianco Research, argues that a double-dip recession may be on the horizon because American political leaders have restricted how much money the U.S. can borrow. "What has been the big driver of economic growth over the last 25 years? It's been debt," argues Bianco.

Doug Kass, founder and president of Seabreeze Partners Management, argues that the value of gold is entirely "sentimental," and that he'd prefer to invest in a company that has a known value, like Apple.

Sal Arnuk, partner and co-founder of Themis Trading, discusses the precautions being taken in the stock market after the Flash Crash of 2010.