Month: May 2014
The Friday File: Only 11 horses have won the Triple Crown and while many hope California Chrome becomes the 12th and the first since 1978, my portfolio and I hope not. Eight of the 11 times a horse has won…
Read MoreWhy are rates so low? Let me count the reasons: flight to quality due to rising geopolitical risk, the Fed’s promise to keep short-term rates low for a long time, Japan’s massive monetary stimulus, the ECB’s decision to start printing…
Read MoreAT&T’s $48.5 billion bid for DirecTV is brilliant. AT&T’s subscriber base of 5.7 million households is much too small for them to bully content providers into agreeing to favorable terms, and their U-Verse technology is poor compared to Verizon’s FiOS…
Read MoreLast week the economic data were decidedly mixed. The leading economic indicators, Chicago Fed National Activity Index, existing home sales, mortgage applications and the Architectural Billing Index were all negative to neutral. However, the Kansas City Fed Manufacturing index and…
Read MoreThe Friday file: To paraphrase Milton Friedman, a society that puts equality of outcome ahead of freedom will have neither. Using force to achieve equality will destroy freedom and the force will end up in the hands of self-serving persons.…
Read MoreA great international currency possesses three characteristics. It’s used to settle a substantial amount of international trade and commerce, it floats freely and is used as global reserve currency, meaning it’s held in large quantities by central banks and financial…
Read MoreWhile total hours worked have declined over the past century, until recently the poor worked more hours than the upper classes. In 1965, college-educated men enjoyed more leisure than those with a high school diploma. Now, college graduates work 10…
Read MoreIn 2012, 437,000 people were murdered, thus the average person had a one-in-sixteen-thousand chance of being murdered. In Singapore, the safest country, your chances of being knocked off were 1/480,000 while in Honduras, the most violent, your chances were a…
Read MoreRather than waiting to pass housing finance reform, which is impossible, why not merge Fannie and Freddie in the meantime? Both firms do the same things — buy loans and securitize them — are regulated by the same agency, are…
Read MoreThe Friday File: A recent study that tracked 500,000 women for five years found that the chances of being in a car accident vary during pregnancy. When not pregnant and during the first month of pregnancy, the chances of being…
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