To give the United States a big kick in the rear.
China announced plans to land a probe on the moon. Granted, this is an unmanned probe and not landing a person, but the Chinese may continue to push forward toward a manned landing. I suspect they will.
Is this at all unnerving to a US Citizen? Well, there are a couple of things to consider.
Please be another ...
More →More information has come out indicating Larry Summers may be Obama’s choice for the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Sometimes this sort of leaked information is just plain wrong. Every once in a while that happens. Let’s hope this is one of those times.
It isn’t that summers it the devil. There is nothing that “awful” about him. The worst part about a Summers appointment is that it ...
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Balance sheets are a vehicle for storing value, kind of like a massive economic freezer unit.
Other than commodities and perhaps some other obscure financial instruments, balance sheets are essentially the only way to store value for use in the future. Maybe it is on a bank’s balance sheet as a simple savings account. Maybe it is on a government’s balance sheet as public debt (a bond). Maybe it is on a corporate balance sheet as equity (stock).
I ...
More →Sometimes one country’s stock market does better than another.
It sounds like a glaringly obvious statement, and yet the financial media is always so surprised when one country or region outperforms another.
Right now the problems and poor performance continues to mount in Asian emerging markets. Indonesia just took a big hit, China is having trouble, Indian currency just dropped, and surrounding countries are slumping.
Is it time to hit the panic button?
Remember the decade of 2000 – 2009? The ...
More →No matter what happens, there always seems to be a catastrophe looming – at least in the minds of the financial media.
Now one of the big stories is the “exodus” from bond funds. The bond market has taken a hit this year with bond yields creeping up. The 10 year US treasury yield is now just under 3%.
The financial media is shouting about concerns of higher yields. Will ...
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Apparently JP Morgan is coming under investigation for hiring the children of a Chinese official, which may have led to business in China.
My initial reaction to this….yeah, so?
Not that it is “ok” for JP Morgan to be doing something like this, but this sort of thing happens all the time – so much so that it is basically standard operating procedure for the investment banks.
Much worse, I think, than trading favors by hiring children, is the revolving ...
More →The decision on who will be Fed Chairman goes deeper than simply Yellen vs. Summers and their personal qualifications.
The debate in public sentiment continues, and you can hear there is some anger at the possibility of Summers. This is my fourth post on the topic. Why is this so important to so many people?
First, the Fed Chairman is an important job that effects a lot of lives.
But to me, and I think to a lot of people, ...
More →It can be complicated to understand exactly why Larry Summers would not be a good choice for Fed Chairman. In this post, Paul Krugman does a good job of explaining it.
Aren’t they all Democrats?
Obama is a Democrat, Summers is a Democrat, and Summers worked under Bill Clinton. Since Summers’ name came out in the press there has been strong resistance from the public, and also from within the Democratic Party. If ...
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