Month: August 2011
Despite a perpetually lousy economy, the Yen continues to rise; Three reasons. First, deflation makes the Yen worth more tomorrow than today encouraging investors to hold it despite microscopic interest rates. Second, Japan’s large trade surplus ensures continued demand for…
Read MoreResearchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco find that 2.7% of consumer spending went to Chinese made items. Moreover, for every $1 spent on Chinese made goods, fully 55 cents goes to US businesses for services like shipping,…
Read MoreThe Friday File: The US Tax Court just ruled that under the Parsonage Allowance of 1921 an ordained clergy member may now live tax-free in an UNLIMITED number of homes owned by his or her religious organization, or receive a…
Read MoreGoogle’s $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility, and its 17K patents, will get FTC and Justice Department approval. After all, it’s a big company picking up a small one in a very different space. The big concern is that Google…
Read MoreQE worked miracles by injecting massive liquidity into the economy in ’08 and ’09, and staved off a depression. While smaller, QE2 boosted equity prices and weakened the $US which boosted exports, raised commodity prices and headline inflation. If we…
Read MoreHouse prices are currently weak in the UK, France, Germany Ireland, Italy and the US. But they are way up in Canada, China, Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore, S. Africa and Sweden. Why? The former countries had a housing bubble that…
Read MoreWeak in review: 10-yr Treasury rates fell to their lowest level since 4/50 and the stock market plummeted! This was due to the unfolding Euro disaster, a benign fear of long-term US inflation and a dismal Philly Fed number, a…
Read MoreThe Friday File: Due to costly raw materials and slow growth, a wave of consolidation is pouring over the beer industry. The 4 biggest breweries; Anheuser-Busch-InBev, SABMiller, Heinekin and Carlsberg all foreign (the biggest US owned brewery is Sam Adams),…
Read MoreThe London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) is losing relevance. Outstanding LIBOR borrowings have fallen 63% in the past 3 years and it has failed to capture turmoil in the banking sector due to the Euro crisis. Why? Central banks around…
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