Posted in Economy on Aug 14th, 2011
The “death cross,” is where the 50 Day Moving Average crosses below the 200 Day Moving Average. When it happens the technical analyst folks say things like: The “death cross” confirmed at the end of last week’s dramatic action, and this significant event points to the growing possibility of a new bear market. Death Cross [...]
Posted in Economy on Aug 14th, 2011
Although I personally loathe buying any treasury debt at this time, negative real interest rates on ten year bonds is a pretty unique situation. For the people who are buying treasury bonds is more important than the interest rate risk. The idea of the ten year bond closing the week at –0.02 tells me that [...]
Posted in Economy on Aug 8th, 2011
Unlike most of the media the debt ceiling debate I thought the debate went as expected. After watching the budget debates in California, Illinois, New Jersey, and Wisconsin I was expecting the debt ceiling debate to be ugly and to satisfy no one. However the most interesting financial result from the debt ceiling agreement was [...]
Posted in Economy on Apr 19th, 2011
When economic times are good, households should spend and invest more, while government should spend and invest less. When they’re bad, households need to cut back, and the government needs to step in. There are several things wrong with his complaints about comparing households to governments. When we look at a longer time scale [...]
Posted in Economy on Apr 17th, 2011
I have been thinking along these same lines for several months now although I worded a little bit differently. I agree that the average American worker is increasing living as a debt serf. Increasingly they live from one paycheck to the next. This makes job changes and increased wage demands a risky career choice. It [...]
Posted in Economy on Mar 27th, 2011
The problem with both the defined benefit and defined contribution plans is that we do not put enough money in them. The primary difference between the plans is who we blame for not having enough funds. EVEN WITH ROSY ASSUMPTIONS, public pensions are deep in the red. “A 2010 Pew study on public pensions nationwide [...]
Posted in Economy on Jan 3rd, 2011
TCU’s 21-19 win over Wisconsin on Saturday earned an 11.7 overnight rating, down 15 percent from the 13.8 for Ohio State-Oregon on ABC last year. ESPN is available in about 13 percent fewer homes than ABC. I do not have cable so I was somewhat surprised when I could not find the Rose Bowl [...]
Michelle Malkin in the article, Small-Biz Killers – Michelle Malkin – National Review Online, says: State unemployment benefits last up to 26 weeks. Bipartisan-supported Washington mandates have raised that to 99 weeks. The current proposal would raise the total to 155 weeks In this article, Calculated Risk: Tax Negotiations: No help for 99ers, the author [...]
This would have been a great time for Democrats and Republicans to come together and forge a "budget neutral" compromise of spending cuts to offset lower tax revenues. For two years we have been living under “emergency” exemptions from the PAYGO law. I think the voters showed they are equally concerned about the jobs and [...]
Recently I went to Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget site, Budget Simulator | Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and ran the budget simulator. The objective is stabilize the U.S. Debt at 60% of GDP by 2018. I think I came up with budget cuts and tax increases that amounted to 58% of the [...]
On this day, the Virginia Tech community reflects on the vibrant lives of the 32 students and faculty who were tragically taken from us a year ago. Through light, art, and music we pay tribute to each and every person we lost. We gather to honor our friends, colleagues, and family members. We will never forget.