I just spent a really interesting off-camera hour chatting with Traxis Partners’ Barton Biggs about his view of the markets and the world right now. There were some really great nuggets that I watned to share with InBiz watchers…

* Barton thinks that the U.S. economy does need another round of stimulus. He’d like to see it in the form of a massive infrastructure spending program. In fact, he thinks that the past stimulus programs were too small.

* Yet Biggs thinks that there is excessive bearishness among the U.S. intellectual elite and market watchers right now.

* Biggs thinks that the speculators are ruling the oil/gas markets right now. He called for the CFTC to raise margin requirements to cut back on the speculating.

* Barton thinks that we’re 1/3 of the way through a secular bear market for financial stocks

*He’s not recommending that his grandchildren enter the financial industry!

He’s known as the Merchant Prince of Retail for his knack of turning around retailers like Ann Taylor, the Gap and J. Crew. His management style is controversial and he’s at the center of the biggest retail buyout of 2010. J.Crew CEO Mickey Drexler took me on a tour of the retailer’s new flagship in Manhattan to talk about what’s next since private equity company TPG Capital purchased it for $3b. Here’s Part 1:

Egyptian Activist Wael Ghonim on the new Egypt
Shot in Cairo, Egypt Feb 14th, 2011