Eureka! Gold!
Yesterday I wrote in this column that we had taken a position, as advisor, in a couple of gold stocks — Newmont Mining and Homestake Mining. It’s been over 20 years since I’ve traded gold stocks — doing it again took me back to my earliest days of trading, back in the 1970s. Back in […]
The Executor’s Song: Part 4, Getting the Estate Organized
Publisher’s Note: This is the fourth in a six part series of personal finance columns on the subject of being the executor of an estate. These columns are based on my own personal experiences in this regard. Individuals should consult a professional advisor and take their own circumstances into account. While my primary objective is […]
California Stealing on a Blackout Day
A reader in Michigan says that he has been living in retirement on $15,000 a year — about $5,000 from Social Security and about $10,000 from stocks he owns in Southern California Edison. But now that the California government has forced Southern California Edison to sell electricity for less than it paid to buy it, […]
About Face on the Market
Yesterday I wrote in this column, “So many people are so totally hypnotized by the “don’t fight the Fed” mantra that it wouldn’t surprise me to see a brief rally here, back toward the highs achieved two weeks ago. Maybe a narrow defensive index like the Dow Jones Industrial Average might even make new recovery […]
Politically Correct Racism vs. Justice Thomas
Ebony, a monthly black magazine, puts out an annual list of the “100+ Most Influential Black Americans.” First, the magazine’s criteria. Influential means, “1. Does the individual transcend his or her position and command widespread national influence? 2. Does the individual affect in a decisive and positive way the lives, thinking and actions of large […]
The U.N. versus “Human Rights”
Nothing could show more clearly the United Nations’ lack of commitment toward curbing human rights abuses than its absurd refusal to re-elect the United States to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. This diplomatic slap in the face was compounded by the fact that the world body has elected Sudan to a seat on the […]
At Least the FED Didn’t Blow It
At least the Fed didn’t blow it. The FOMC‘s 50 basis point rate cut yesterday gave the markets just enough oxygen to keep breathing until further evidence of a deteriorating economy necessitates the next rate cut. It could have been worse. And based on the fact that all the markets were virtually unchanged yesterday, it […]
America’s Amnesia
Arthur M. Schlesinger wrote in “The Disuniting of America”: “History is to the nation … as memory is to the individual. An individual deprived of memory becomes disoriented and lost, not knowing where he has been or where he is going, so a nation denied a conception of its past will be disabled in dealing […]
We Are All “Drop Outs”
Hats off to Jackson Toby, who wrote in the Weekly Standard what few have dared to say in the past three decades: “Let them drop out.” He argues that too many students are finding nothing but frustration and resentment at being trapped for hours every day in high schools that are boring and meaningless to […]
On Race Relations, Color Me Confused
I’m confused. Director Spike Lee calls racism America’s “No. 1 problem.” So he makes a film called “Bamboozled,” which argues that white network executives intentionally put on the worst images of blacks. Yet, when Lee asked to use seldom-seen “racially insensitive” Bugs Bunny cartoons made 50 years ago, Warner Brothers refused. Why? The company found […]
“Big Oil” and The High Cost of Demons
Since it has long been known that the best defense is a good offense, it should not be surprising that politicians who have created an economic mess should begin loudly denouncing somebody else as the cause of the public’s problems. Last year, the problem was a sharp increase in gasoline prices in California and in […]
Wal-Mart is Wal-Smart
The world’s biggest retailer proves the New Economy isn’t just for tech companies. To be at the leading edge of the New Economy, a company doesn’t have to make semiconductors or optical networking components, or even map the human genome. As much as anything else the New Economy is about new business methods — and […]
California’s Green Profiteers
Last week, a quarter of a million Californians had their power cut in a new wave of rolling blackouts. As one official admitted, “This is the situation everyone feared. Here it is May 7, and we already have rolling outages.” This is only a warm-up for the summer, when peak demand is projected to soar […]
The Executor’s Song: Part 3, Performing Triage for the Estate
Publisher’s Note: This is the third in a series of personal finance columns on the subject of being the executor of an estate. These columns are based on my own personal experiences in this regard. Individuals should consult a professional advisor and take their own circumstances into account. While my primary objective is to show […]
The United States Should Withdraw From the United Nations
Last week, the US was voted out of the UN Human Rights Commission. Rights violating nations such as Sudan, Libya, and Syria, were voted in. What does this vote tell us about the nature of the UN and of its members? Well, it clearly tells us that most of the UN’s members don’t care for […]
Diversify Your Portfolio with Tech’s Leaders
Jack Welch, the retiring CEO of General Electric, may be the greatest corporate manager of all time. I’m not comparing him to inventors or entrepreneurs who created great things out of nothing, but as a manager who can run a business, develop talent and consistently squeeze better results out of a seemingly mature industry. As […]
Lost in the Dark
A week ago I wrote here that the NASDAQ’s highs of Wednesday, May 2, marked the closing bookend of the NASDAQ’s fabulous bull run that carried it 35.6% from the bottom on April 4. So far I’ve been right. From May 2 through yesterday’s close, the NASDAQ has dropped 4.1%. Since the top on May […]
Estate Planning: Part 1, An Unhappy and Burdensome Task
Author’s Note: This is the first in a series of personal finance columns on the subject of being the executor of an estate. These columns are based on my own personal experiences in this regard. Individuals should consult a professional advisor and take their own circumstances into account. While my primary objective is to show […]
![<a href="//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Poitras" class="extiw" title="w:Laura Poitras">Laura Poitras</a> / <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.praxisfilms.org/">Praxis Films</a> [<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0">CC-BY-3.0</a>], <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AEdward_Snowden_mirror.jpg">via Wikimedia Commons</a>](http://capitalismmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/Edward_Snowden_mirror-45x45.jpg "Book Review: “No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State” by Glenn Greenwald"){kind=small}
