The Tea Party Movement

by | Sep 30, 2010 | POLITICS

Take a step back and look what’s going on. Last year, Rick Santelli, a Chicago trader who does reports for CNBC did “The Rant Heard Round the World,” in which he said, among many good things: “I’m thinking of having a...

A Candid Appraisal of the Recovery

by | Sep 27, 2010 | Investing

Over the last two weeks, seemingly good economic news offered some shreds of optimism to a stock market that was desperate for a pick-me-up. The week before last, the National Bureau of Economic Research declared that the US recession had ended back in June 2009....

Obama's Economic Ignorance

by | Sep 23, 2010 | POLITICS

With 15 million workers unemployed and another 11 million underemployed, President Obama recently decided that the answer was to hit the road and throw some anti-rich red meat to some friendly stadium audiences. At a Labor Day rally in Milwaukee, Mr. Obama declared...

The “Deleveraging” Deception

by | Sep 20, 2010 | Investing

There is wide agreement among economists and the financial media that our lackluster economic performance stems from continued “deleveraging” among consumers and businesses. Although it is certainly true that after decades of overly speculative borrowing,...

Castro and Obama

by | Sep 20, 2010 | Cuba & Castro, POLITICS

At least for a few moments last week, we had the strange spectacle of President Obama sounding more like a collectivist than Fidel Castro. With the federal payroll in the United States up by 200,000 positions and the private sector down by 7.8 million jobs since the...

Japan Intervenes to Bail Out America.com

by | Sep 17, 2010 | Investing

This week, after the Japanese yen had surged to a fifteen-year high against the US dollar, the Japanese government decided to intervene in the foreign exchange market. To great fanfare, the Bank of Japan initiated a vigorous campaign to buy US dollars, thereby...

Does the Fed Ultimately Control Interest Rates?

by | Sep 17, 2010 | Investing

In forecasting the consequences of current economic policy, many pundits are downplaying the risks associated with the surging national debt and the rapid expansion of marketable Treasury securities. Their comfort stems from the belief that a staggering debt...

Don't Doubt the Double Dip

by | Sep 10, 2010 | POLITICS

A few weeks ago Nouriel Roubini, widely regarded as one of the more pessimistic figures on Wall Street, made headlines by raising his forecasted likelihood of a “double dip recession” to a terrifying 40%. The vast majority of “mainstream”...