Tag Archives | the markets

Tomorrow, on Monday, May 7th, the US stock market will take a big hit.

By on May 6, 2012 in Economics, Human Behavior

The reason will be that the French and the Greeks appear to have unseated a couple of the governments which imposed or promoted austerity, which most of the major US market mavens have been saying, for weeks, is completely the wrong way to go. I guess the message is that they are so convinced of [...]

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The psychological impact of GDP rates.

By on April 29, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

The preliminary GDP numbers are our for first quarter 2012 and the same story we have heard lately is being re-played, personal expenditures are up but government spending is down. The early number for Q1 is 2.2% Now my question is what number do we need to sustain to take away the psychological funk created [...]

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Economic freedom.

By on April 26, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

I looked at something by The Heritage Foundation, (a conservative think tank), the other day, their report on economic freedom. This report ranks 184 countries on economic freedom, this ranking is based on business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, government spending, monetary spending, investment freedom, financial freedom, property freedom, freedom from corruption, and labor freedom, (tellingly labor freedom [...]

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I understand Ron Paul’s frustration …

By on March 8, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

Paul wants to see gold used as money, or possibly as the backing for easier to fold money. He is too modest in his views: It is not just gold which is more realistically money than the stuff we use; corn would serve as well, or rice, or lumber, or land, or a host of [...]

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Income inequality: a new look

By on March 7, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

From an article in The Economist on the sidebar (‘Income Inequality: Growing Apart), there is commentary and a link to new research by Emmanuel Saez): http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2010.pdf which gave me some new insights on our current inequality (mostly due not to rentier income as in the Gilded Age but compensation to valued employees as well as [...]

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Time to exit the market?

By on March 6, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

Whitney is a progressive http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/05/mom-and-pop-investors-call-it-quits/ and Stockman is a conservative http://www.businessinsider.com/david-stockman-youd-be-a-fool-to-hold-anything-but-cash-now-2012-3?nr_email_referer=1&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Money%20Game%20Select&utm_campaign=MoneyGame%20Select%20Mondays%202012-03-06#ixzz1oFPz7jW but they’re both pretty much saying the same thing: the historic bull run in stocks, courtesy of Bernanke’s ZIRP and QE, is soon coming to an end, as the underlying economy hasn’t recovered. That’s also pretty much what I’ve been saying, too.     [...]

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Maybe what is needed to take something seriously …

By on January 23, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

Maybe what is needed to take something seriously is to have someone other than me suggest it. A year or two ago, I posted the suggestion that a professional retiring soon (i.e. someone earning $100,000 per annum or more) needed a nest-egg of about $2,000,000 in order to continue their accustomed way of life. I [...]

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A misdirected shot?

By on January 22, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

I was reading an item on MSN and found this near the end: “In terms of companies beating expectations, the fourth-quarter earnings season has not been as good as previous ones. Of the approximately 70 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings so far, 60 percent have exceeded analysts’ estimates, according to Thomson [...]

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Feldstein Is Almost Sounding Like Krugman These Days!

By on January 16, 2012 in Economics, International affairs, Politics

Under the Project Syndicate links to the left, I recommend reading Martin Feldstein: How To Create A Depression. [I could not link to it here.]   Mr. Feldstein is sounding almost like Paul Krugman these days! Caught me a bit off-guard!

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Redefining capitalism – as I wish it.

By on January 15, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion, Politics

The latest number I could find for annual US corporate profit is approximately $2.1 Trillion. The latest number I could find for US population age 65 and over is 40 million. If I assume that half of those seniors represent married couples, then we are looking at 30 million potentially retired families. If I divide [...]

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