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Posted: Thursday, April 25th, 2013
There are 13 assumptions that pave the road of good educational intentions. Most Christian parents who send their children to college have adopted eleven of the 13.
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Posted: Thursday, April 25th, 2013
In the opening years of the last decade, most mainstream investors sat on the sidelines while "tin hat" goldbugs rode the bull market from below $300 to just over $1,000 per ounce. But following the 2008 financial crisis, when gold held up better than stocks during the decline and made new record highs long before the Dow Jones fully recovered, Wall Street finally sat up and took notice.
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Posted: Thursday, April 25th, 2013
Suppose you buy a gallon of gas for $3. How much did it cost you? You say, "Williams, that's a silly question. It cost $3." That's where you're mistaken, because there's a difference between price and cost.
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Posted: Thursday, April 25th, 2013
How often do you hear people talk about how they would live their dreams if they only had a bit more money? People always dream about moving to a remote area or about staying home with the kids or about relocating to the bug out location, but often feel that these things are financially unreachable. Do you do this yourself?
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Posted: Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
SHTF events come in many different flavors. While most of us think of things like natural disasters, economic collapse and pandemics, many occurrences are much more mundane. They are those small personal disasters that can hit any of us, at any time.
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Posted: Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, one of the key benchmarks of the US stock market, has soundly surpassed its all-time high. And most of the investing world is toasting their collective success and celebrating the recovery.
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Posted: Wednesday, February 27th, 2013
Putting off starting a savings program until you pay off your debts is one of the worst financial moves that you can make. Waiting until your debts are paid off to start saving is a good way to ensure that you'll never start saving and will always be in debt.
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Posted: Wednesday, February 27th, 2013
Our ever-popular Periodic Table of Commodity Returns has been updated through 2012. Investor Alert readers love this chart as it shows a decade of results across 14 different commodities, providing strikingly rich information in a very familiar format.
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Posted: Tuesday, February 5th, 2013
 Would you convert your labor into depreciating fiat paper or into an appreciating tangible asset with intrinsic value?
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Posted: Thursday, January 31st, 2013
It is not possible to be strong enough regarding what I am about to write. It comes not from being a professional financier. Rather, it comes from a son sorting out his eighty-seven-year-old mother's estate. Not only am I sorting it out, I am working on finding out why it took such heavy losses over the last several years.
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Posted: Thursday, January 31st, 2013
Consider unconventional moves to keep government away from your money.
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Posted: Tuesday, January 1st, 2013
Patent on Human DNA Creates Numerous Problems - Are You Expecting Social Security to Take Care of You? - Secret Service Bans Sale of Liberty Dollars on eBay - Michigan Adopts Right-to-work Laws - Forecaster Claims 100% Chance of Recession in New Year - Is Wind Worth It? - and more...
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Posted: Tuesday, January 1st, 2013
Last week, my family's microwave broke down after 15 years of faithful service. That incident might sound trivial to you. I'm sure it is trivial to you. But it made me aware of how valuable a microwave has been to us. And our week without a microwave taught me a lot about the value of microwaves-and can teach us more generally about the value of economic freedom.
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Posted: Tuesday, January 1st, 2013
With all the talk about taxing the rich, we hear very little talk about taxing the poor. Yet the marginal tax rate on someone living in poverty can sometimes be higher than the marginal tax rate on millionaires.
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Posted: Monday, December 17th, 2012
A number of recent articles explore the growing trend among college-age people to question whether college is worth the costs
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Posted: Thursday, December 6th, 2012
By telling U.S. taxpayers, and the world in general, that the U.S. government has no intention of ever balancing its budget or limiting its accumulation of unsustainable debt, then perhaps we can begin to have an honest discussion about our economic future
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Posted: Wednesday, December 5th, 2012
For a number of years now, a number of critics of the American system of higher education have rightly insisted that there is a "bubble" in the system, with more and more students running up loans in amounts they will find difficult to pay back.
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Posted: Wednesday, December 5th, 2012
The government wants Americans to spend, spend, spend - but the average consumer is over it. Instead of doing what the government wants, millions of consumers are doing what's best for their own lives: they're taking a hard look at their finances and trying to dump their debt load.
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Posted: Tuesday, November 13th, 2012
So what exactly is this looming menace, and why is it so dangerous? Stripped of its rhetorically charged language the fiscal cliff is simply a legal trigger that will trim the deficit in 2013
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Posted: Friday, November 2nd, 2012
My wife Zoe and I taught a young Greek girl, named Eve, English for three years in Thessaloniki, where we live. This ended last year when Eve was sixteen years old and proficient enough to pass the kinds of exams she needed to in order to get into a decent school abroad for further studies. Eve's ultimate goal is to get a job in the European Union. To become, as we Americans like to call career employees of the EU, a Eurocrat.
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Posted: Wednesday, September 26th, 2012
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Posted: Wednesday, September 26th, 2012
The New American
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney promised August 30 to create millions of jobs - 12 million of them, in fact - if he is elected president in November. He said: "What America needs is jobs. Lots of jobs.…
"I am running for president to help create a better future … a future where everyone who wants a job can find a job.…"
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Posted: Wednesday, September 26th, 2012
Economists and pundits alike are going wild over the United Kingdom's recent "double dip" recession. The 2008-09 recession prompted the election of a conservative coalition led by Prime Minister David Cameron. Cameron decided the best path for economic recovery was "austerity," a program of reduced government spending and smaller government debt.
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Posted: Wednesday, August 29th, 2012
In what analysts say is another indication that the economy will get worse in the not-too-distant future, recent filings by billionaire financier George Soros show he dumped virtually all his holdings in major financial companies like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup. His multi-billion-dollar U.S. fund also loaded up on gold, with the portfolio now holding more than $130 million worth of the precious metal.
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Posted: Wednesday, August 29th, 2012
I recently held a hearing in my congressional subcommittee on the subject of competing currencies. This is an issue of enormous importance, but unfortunately few Americans understand how the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department impose a strict monopoly on money in America.
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Posted: Wednesday, August 29th, 2012
The word "debt" is being constantly bantered about in every facet of the media. We seemed obsessed with the "national debt" and how the next president will solve it. Frankly, the whole debate is getting tiresome, especially when used as a political "football" by less than honorable leaders.
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Posted: Friday, July 27th, 2012
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Posted: Friday, July 27th, 2012
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Posted: Saturday, July 7th, 2012
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Posted: Thursday, June 28th, 2012
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Posted: Thursday, May 31st, 2012
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Posted: Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
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Posted: Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
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Posted: Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
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Posted: Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
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Posted: Tuesday, March 27th, 2012
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Posted: Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
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Posted: Monday, March 5th, 2012
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Posted: Monday, March 5th, 2012
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Posted: Thursday, February 9th, 2012
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Posted: Thursday, February 9th, 2012
It was evident; someone hacked his AOL account and was now on a mission to swindle his friends in his address book. So how did he get hacked? Common causes include phishing emails, viruses, trojans, or keyloggers. Either he was tricked into giving his password to a hacker, or his password was stolen via malicious software (malware) running on his local computer.
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Posted: Thursday, February 9th, 2012
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Posted: Thursday, January 5th, 2012
"What can we do? We are running out of time. We need to be pounding on the desks of our elected representatives more than we ever have and tell them we won't stand for this tyranny. We need to tell them "Fix it or else". If Obama isn't removed from office, you will have a lot more to worry about than your portfolio. Thomas Jefferson warned us. He was a wise man; we should be worried."
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Posted: Monday, January 2nd, 2012
"Whether it's pirated software, poison-infused baby formula, cancer-causing drywall, luxury purses, or fake medicines, if you need a knock-off, China has traditionally been the go-to country, with a counterfeiter always willing to oblige."
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Posted: Saturday, December 24th, 2011
In his Forbes magazine article published Thursday, Nathan Lewis makes it sound easy to get back to a gold standard. After all, it has been accomplished numerous times in history around the world, including in America following the Civil War...
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Posted: Monday, December 12th, 2011
Winston Churchill is credited with the following quote: "The Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives". In my peculiar way of looking at things, this American tendency is evident in investors' apathy toward the investment tsunami headed in their direction.
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Posted: Monday, November 14th, 2011
"Let's step back a minute and look at markets from a longer term perspective. You, the investor, have probably concentrated only on recent numbers since March 2009, which have been mostly favorable. The bad experiences tend to disappear from our memories after a couple years. Wall Street doesn't want you to remember it either, lest it dampen your optimistic spirits."
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Posted: Monday, November 7th, 2011
"If Facebook can help solve the unemployment in this country, more power to them. Just keep your eyes open to what the government's roll plays in 'getting in bed' with Facebook. Will they start to demand to see our personal profile information and activities?"
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Posted: Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
"Not so simple rules of trading."
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Posted: Saturday, October 1st, 2011
Do you know what the two most important parts of any marketing or advertising piece are?
The first one is easy-the headline. But the second one is tougher. Because unless you've studied copywriting, you'd be hard-pressed to guess. Yet it can make or break your entire promotion…
The second most important part of your marketing and advertising is the offer.
Think about it. If you want to tons of sales, you really do have to make people an offer they can't refuse. Because even the most powerful call to action won't work unless your offer is practically irresistible.
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Posted: Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
"The Fed, along with the European Central Bank (ECB), has decided that since debt levels have become so intractable they must monetize a massive quantity of government bonds. Analysts at the Royal Bank of Scotland have predicted the ECB will buy €2.5 billion worth of Spanish and Italian bonds each day, which is equivalent to €600 billion a year."
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Posted: Thursday, August 25th, 2011
"As rules of thumb when deciding to download an app, I look for a rating of four stars or more, high download totals, good reviews, and preferably free ones. Shameless advertising is probably the largest downside of the free versions of apps. But if you really like it you can usually purchase an ads-free version through a small 'donation' to the developer."
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Posted: Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
"Washington and Wall Street have been consistently feeding investors misleading and overly optimistic information. The economy stinks and the market knows it. The S&P 500 is down by 18 % in the last 19 calendar days. By many definitions, we have just experienced a market crash some define as a rapid decline greater than 15%. Call it what you want, if you were fully invested and just lost 16-18%, it sure feels like a crash."
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Posted: Tuesday, August 16th, 2011
"Once again, re-consider the advice you may be getting from your advisor. You will hear interviews on TV designed to calm your nerves. One sample: '.. don't panic into this pull back..'. You pay up big if he's wrong!"
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Posted: Friday, August 5th, 2011
"Do Americans love their cars too much? Even as a car lover myself, I would argue yes. There is no other explanation for our behavior. Most of us who wouldn't consider financing furniture or appliance purchases will take out a loan to finance our vehicles without a second thought."
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Posted: Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
"Currently, the greenback is at three year lows against key competitor currencies such as the Euro and the Swiss franc. It's setting new records for lows against the reminbi (which doesn't even trade freely!) and even Brazilian reals and Russian rubles are becoming preferred by traders as a transaction currency."
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Posted: Tuesday, July 26th, 2011
"Mostly, I don't like Wal-Mart because it has become so big that it doesn't care about its customers. America was made great because businesses used to have a heart. My Wal-Mart experience told me that it doesn't give a ----. Its philosophy: We got another billion where that guy came from."
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Posted: Friday, July 22nd, 2011
"Here are the three most common challenges faced when selling an estate property and the answers on how to overcome them. An estate property is real estate that needs to be sold out of probate or Trust after the owner has passed. There is a personal representative or trustee who is usually pre-appointed and entrusted with selling the estate's assets. The Real Estate is usually the largest and the most complicated asset that needs to be sold. Here are the three challenges and solutions."
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Posted: Thursday, July 21st, 2011
"Everybody wants to increase business and be successful. Don't ignore potential customers by letting their feedback form inquiries go unanswered. If you're too busy, then assign this task to someone in your organization. Customer service is the key to success. I can testify from experience, a prompt response is always appreciated when I follow up with a potential client."
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Posted: Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
"Yes, growth in global gold demand is rapid. No, another decade of quintupling prices isn't nailed on. But neither of those facts make gold a "bubble" today."
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Posted: Monday, July 11th, 2011
"There are many benefits to having a mobile site for your business. The most prominent advantage to having a mobile site is its convenience and visibility for your audience to access information. Your main website contains graphics, content and pages that may be irrelevant to the mobile user, causing it to be tedious and time consuming to browse. Mobile websites provide a user-friendly interface that is easier to navigate and displays only the content you feel is most important such as hours, specials, directions or phone numbers."
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Posted: Friday, July 8th, 2011
"The rules of market physics are a lot different and often more variable than the rules for the physical world, but the presumption behind chart pattern analogs is that if you are seeing the same behavior, then the same sorts of inputs and rules of motion are at work."
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Posted: Saturday, July 2nd, 2011
 "In conclusion, it pays to keep an eye on the State pension fund because the uncertain returns in their funds ought to be an incentive to you, the pension recipient, to cultivate other investments to supplement what you expect to receive from the State. Guarantees and promises don't mean anything if they haven't got the cash to make good on those promises."
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Posted: Monday, June 27th, 2011
 "The majority of people depend on the Internet for many things on a daily basis. For me, it's been a way of life for 15 years. It's how I communicate with friends and family, shop, research a new product, look for someone to wash my windows, and run my business. In those years, I've come across a lot of websites...good and bad."
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Posted: Monday, June 20th, 2011
"If you are using precious metals as a means of protecting your savings,  you may want to consider the current market fluctuations as a warning to mind the balance of your portfolio. Gold has been more volatile than silver, and so if you are weighted heavily into gold, you are taking on more risk for your nest egg. Moving some of your money into silver will give more stability."
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Posted: Sunday, June 5th, 2011
"An expert on world markets is suggesting another reason for why oil prices are still up -- and it has nothing to do with supply and demand or the Middle East."
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Posted: Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
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Posted: Saturday, May 14th, 2011
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Posted: Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
"You must stay flexible on your thinking. Fall in love with no commodity. And no matter how much you like a commodity, before you invest in a producer, be sure to think hard about whether it is a good business or not."
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Posted: Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
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Posted: Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
"Those promoting this philosophy - and they include everybody from Rush Limbaugh to the Federal Reserve to the Cato Institute to Oprah Winfrey to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Wisconsin public union protestors to Joel Osteen - claim that money and material gain will solve humankind's problems; that prosperity will lead to world peace and harmony; and that universal affluence will enable unfettered gratification."
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Posted: Monday, April 18th, 2011
"Given that the Treasury is essentially selling its debt to the Fed, in a process that we would call debt monetizatio n, some may wonder why it doesn't just cut out the middle man and sell directly. But the Treasury is prevented by law from doing this, so the private banks provide a vital fig leaf that disguises the underlying activity and makes it appear as if there is legitimate private demand for Treasury debt. But this is just an illusion, and a clumsy one to boot."
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Posted: Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
"Think of the cheapest foods at your local grocer - they are likely cheap pastas and boxed processed foods (Ramen noodles, mac and cheese, packages of potato flakes sold as 'instant mashed potatoes,' etc). While these foods will do in a pinch, they aren't exactly healthy staples to build the basis of a clean diet."
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Posted: Thursday, April 7th, 2011
"Last November, clearing house ICE  Europe began accepting gold bullion as initial margin for crude oil and natural gas futures. This year, JPMorgan Chase announced that it would accept physical gold as collateral for a number of transactions. According to the Wall Street Journal, stock exchanges in New York, Chicago and Europe recently agreed to accept gold as collateral for certain trades, too. The World Gold Council is gaining traction in its push to have the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision accept the precious metals as a Tier-1 asset for banks, along with government bonds and currencies."
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Posted: Thursday, March 31st, 2011
"You can sell short many sectors or indices whether you're in a cash account or retirement account, such as an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). Say, for example, I believe the financial sector is in trouble and likely to sink. I can buy shares of SEF or SKF, which profit when the financial sector index it tracks starts to decline. Or, you can bet against gold, silver, or several other asset classes. Mutual funds are frequently so diversified that you have no idea which fund to buy, whether it is overpriced or under priced or, more importantly, whether it is headed up or down."
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Posted: Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
"It's not just disasters in Japan. After Florida's devastating 20 04 hurricane, newspapers carried headlines such as 'Storms create lucrative times.' and 'Economic growth from hurricanes could outweigh costs.' Economist Steve Cochrane added, 'It's a perverse thing ... there's real pain, but from an economic point of view, it is a plus.'"
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Posted: Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
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Posted: Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
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Posted: Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
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Posted: Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
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Posted: Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
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Posted: Monday, September 27th, 2010
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Posted: Monday, September 27th, 2010
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Posted: Monday, September 13th, 2010
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Posted: Monday, September 13th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
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Posted: Thursday, April 25th, 2013
Every business owner hates to lose a potential customer. This is particularly difficult for a business owner who sells a high quality and high value product. I've heard many owners complain that the potential customers just aren't comparing items of the same quality and sales are lost based upon price alone.
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Posted: Thursday, April 25th, 2013
After Gold Crash, Experts Point to Central Bank Manipulation, FHA in Line for Taxpayer Bailout, Will the Housing Bubble Happen Again? and more...
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Posted: Thursday, April 25th, 2013
Why is it so difficult for most people to see big changes coming? I'll play the role of an amateur psychologist and take a few guesses: Big changes occur slowly and largely imperceptibly so they are less threatening. These changes are often accompanied by "noise" which obscures the key changes that are occurring.
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Posted: Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
As is typical, Wall Street and the media are celebrating a jobs report that is not nearly as positive as the headlines suggest. The continuing decline in the labor force participation rate was at least as important a factor as the new jobs created in bringing down the official unemployment rate to 7.7%.
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Posted: Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
It takes courage to be a bearish advisor in these days of constantly rising manipulated markets. The S&P has risen 13.5% since June 2012. When a client calls and complains, "We were at a party and everybody was talking about much money they were making and we had to sit there with our traps shut".
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Posted: Wednesday, February 27th, 2013
Do you want to know why it seems like good jobs are very rare in the United States today? It is because good jobs are very rare in the United States today. According to a paper that was just released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, only 24.6 percent of all American jobs qualified as "good jobs" in 2010.
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Posted: Wednesday, February 27th, 2013
Aging is tough enough without committing a blunder that could destroy decades of work spent preparing for retirement. This is not legal advice (which I can't provide). The following are just common mistakes I've read about or run into.
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Posted: Wednesday, February 27th, 2013
One of the fastest growing age groups today are seniors 85 and over. They are in the last stages of life. Baby boomers, those who are now 55 to 67 years of age, are a large group of people who are entering retirement.
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Posted: Thursday, January 31st, 2013
Wholefoods CEO Calls Obamacare "Fascism", 'Devastating' Death Tax Hopefully Near Its End, Illinois Bill Mandating Registration of Precious Metal Purchases, Will the US Become the World's Top Oil Producer?, and more...
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Posted: Thursday, January 31st, 2013
ZIRP, zombies, and the japanization of the American economy
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Posted: Saturday, January 19th, 2013
 People have a long and intimate history with coins. Some of us collected them as kids, and we all touch and see them every day. Unlike currency bills, we know intuitively that a coin's value is supposed to come from its metal content. That's why quarters are bigger than dimes. As a result, most people have viscerally rejected the platinum coin idea. To assign an arbitrary, sky high, valuation to a small piece of metal strikes most people as a deceitful, desperate act. They are right.
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Posted: Tuesday, January 1st, 2013
Options are powerful tools that most investors haven't explored
One of the problems writers face is finding the middle of the road and penning something of interest to the biggest common denominator in the readership. One item of interest might be stock options. These can be very useful and I'd guess most readers have never tried them.
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Posted: Tuesday, January 1st, 2013
Over half of American homes will drop in price between now and next June. That is the conclusion of an article on CNN. This has to do with the fiscal cliff, we are told. The fiscal cliff will produce a recession.
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Posted: Friday, December 21st, 2012
 Conventional wisdom would say the markets took losses during that time, and she was one of the victims. True, but was this necessary? Not at all. Here is the burr in my saddle. This was not only not necessary, but more than likely (I will know in the end) it was due to incompetence in various regards.
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Posted: Wednesday, December 12th, 2012
 Suppose you saw a building on fire. Would you seek counsel from the arsonist who set it ablaze for advice on how to put it out? [T]hat's precisely what we've done: turned to the people who created our fiscal crisis to fix it.
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Posted: Wednesday, December 5th, 2012
One of the best indicators of a state's economic health, according to John Merline, writing in Investor's Business Daily, is the "U-Haul Index" (first publicized by economist Mark Perry) to see what people are paying to move into, or out of, the state.
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Posted: Wednesday, December 5th, 2012
There is a bias against older workers in the job market. This has come as a shock to older workerts who got laid off in 2008-9. They still have trouble finding work.
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Posted: Wednesday, December 5th, 2012
The Administration Is Focused Like a Laser - On Your Retirement Funds
Legendary bank robber Willie Sutton was supposedly asked, "Why do you rob banks?" He was falsely credited with this pithy response: "Because that's where the money is." He was falsely credited with this pithy response: "Because that's where the money is."
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Posted: Friday, November 2nd, 2012
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the Federal Reserve's policy has been to keep interest rates at about zero percent, and to run a program called "quantitative easing" (or QE), which is designed to pump money into the system by buying U.S. Treasury bonds, mortgage-backed securities, and other assets.
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Posted: Friday, November 2nd, 2012
Desperately Searching For Yield
Recently, I discussed the merits of rental real estate with a couple I know. They had visions of a relatively decent retirement and expected to earn reasonable yields on their cash. But yields cratered; an excess supply of money drives rates down as borrowers can select from the lowest rates in decades and savers are penalized.
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Posted: Wednesday, September 26th, 2012
"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded" is a paraprosdokian quote attributed to Yogi Berra. It's a good quote to keep in mind with respect to the treasury markets, which are getting increasingly crowded.
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Posted: Wednesday, September 26th, 2012
Godfather Politics
The government makes it very easy to bring on prosperity. Print more money. If that's always the solution, then why not do it sooner, bigger, and faster? The Federal Reserve has decided to pump more funny money into the economy. On cue, the stock market rallied:
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Posted: Wednesday, September 26th, 2012
Instead of seeking employment during high school and/or college years, the youngster now expects the parents to foot the bill. These students have been raised with a sense of entitlement or "you owe me" mentality. If they do work, the "minimum wage" handle has no appeal-it's beneath their dignity. They want to make "big bucks" right up front.
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Posted: Wednesday, August 29th, 2012
The software world is in the middle of a patent arms race. Everybody is suing everybody else for patent infringement. And companies are spending billions of dollars buying up patent portfolios.
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Posted: Wednesday, August 29th, 2012
Don't trust White House marketing on network TV; the truth is an unwelcome guest
Filtering the reports we absorb daily from the mainstream media is a necessity and so is "following the money" to make sense of it all. Some questions to ask might be: who owns the network and what is their political allegiance? Economic news is believed by most observers to be the number one factor which will determine the victor in November.
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Posted: Friday, August 17th, 2012
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Posted: Friday, July 27th, 2012
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Posted: Friday, July 27th, 2012
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Posted: Thursday, June 28th, 2012
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Posted: Thursday, May 31st, 2012
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Posted: Thursday, May 31st, 2012
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Posted: Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
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Posted: Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
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Posted: Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
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Posted: Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
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Posted: Thursday, March 15th, 2012
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Posted: Monday, March 5th, 2012
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Posted: Monday, March 5th, 2012
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Posted: Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
Magazine Covers & News Reports Point to a Topping Process
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Posted: Thursday, February 9th, 2012
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Posted: Thursday, February 9th, 2012
Just yesterday, I read accounts of resistance to cash withdrawal requests by certain banks. It's happening in Europe right now, especially Greece. Don't wait for the rating agencies such as Standard & Poors, etc. to tell you that acompany is in trouble; they will only inform you the patient is sick after the burial.
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Posted: Thursday, February 9th, 2012
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Posted: Monday, January 2nd, 2012
"A multi-trillion dollar European aid package cannot be undertaken by Europe alone, and will require IMF and Federal Reserve involvement. The Federal Reserve already has pumped trillions of dollars into the US economy with nothing to show for it. Just considering Fed involvement in Europe is ludicrous. The US economy is in horrible shape precisely because of too much government debt and too much money creation and the European economy is destined to flounder for the same reasons. We have an unsustainable amount of debt here at home; it is hardly fair to US taxpayers to take on Europe's debt as well. That will only ensure an accelerated erosion of the dollar and a lower standard of living for all Americans."
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Posted: Monday, January 2nd, 2012
"Putting it all together, then, the first quarter of 2012 will tell a lot about the direction of the economy, especially in light of credit card bills coming due in January and the inevitable layoffs of temporary and part-time workers following the holidays. Uncertainty in Washington over spending and in the Eurozone added to the Federal Reserve's increased likelihood of increasing the money supply putting further upward pressure on prices, and the outlook for the economy remains daunting. "
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Posted: Saturday, December 17th, 2011
According to the National Retail Foundation, it is anticipated that $456 billion will be spent this holiday season. As Christmas approaches, more of us will look to the Internet for the latest online deals. Please keep these tips in mind when using a retail Internet site to ensure your holidays are hassle-free...
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Posted: Friday, November 25th, 2011
"With the unemployment rate at 9.1% as of September 2011, it seems it is not because of job availability. ManpowerGroup conducted a survey and found that 52% of U.S. employers have problems filling up important positions within their organizations. That's 14% up from 2010 numbers."
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Posted: Friday, November 11th, 2011
"A massive battle between inflation and deflation is enveloping the globe. And for now at least, deflation is winning. On the side of inflation are those who want to perpetuate the status quo - more government spending, more money printing, more debt, bigger bailouts.
And on the side of deflation is government austerity, cutbacks and a sinking global economy."
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Posted: Thursday, October 20th, 2011
"Regardless of the likely consequences of abandoning the euro, Farage contends that nations will still be better off, both economically and politically. He declared, "We don't want that flag, we don't want the anthem, we don't want this political class. We want the whole thing consigned to the dustbin of history."
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Posted: Saturday, October 1st, 2011
Cash is the unloved asset, an asset orphan that nobody loves. Many people do not even consider cash an asset class. Cash is ridiculed like the bespectacled class nerd with the mechanical pencils in his plastic pocket protector. It's an investment pariah. It is consistently and universally the smallest allocation in any brokerage recommendation. Show me an allocation to cash of greater than 20% and I'll buy you dinner. Mutual fund cash levels were recently at 3.4%, the lowest ever. In the investment community, it's practically a felony to have clients with large cash allocations. After all, they have a lot of stuff to sell you.
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Posted: Friday, September 23rd, 2011
"As this huge market bear kicks into second gear (the July-August sell-off is just a warm up) investors will have to be more selective. While gold, silver, and other commodities may have worked to shield a portfolio against sharp declines in equities in the past, these assets do not guarantee similar results in the future."
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Posted: Thursday, August 25th, 2011
"For household costs like groceries and utilities, if you're frugal, you'll keep looking for ways to cut back. For rent, however, most people assume that the only way to lower the cost is to move to a cheaper place. Don't fall into that trap. Believe it or not, you can save money on rent where you're currently living."
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Posted: Monday, August 22nd, 2011
"Athough globalization is widely recognized these days, the U.S. economy actually remains relatively closed. The vast majority of goods and services sold in the United States is produced here. In 2010, imports were about 16% of U.S. GDP. Imports from China amounted to 2.5% of GDP."
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Posted: Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
"Dollar price index goes up, the price of gold AND silver goes down, dollar price index goes down, the price of gold AND silver goes up. I get it, it's been that way for years, the question now is, why has gold been going up and silver down?"
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Posted: Friday, August 5th, 2011
"Almost 80% of consumers have signed up to receive email at least from one company, according to Forrester Research, and two out of three people surveyed said they read email every day of the week. (E-commerce Times)"
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Posted: Thursday, August 4th, 2011
"Nearly 9 in 10 survey respondents (87.7 percent) believe prices in food stores are escalating and almost three-quarters (74 percent) say the size of some packaged goods is smaller. Consequently, savvy consumers are purchasing more private-label and store brand products."
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Posted: Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
"So how can this number become distorted to confuse or mislead investors? This occurs many different ways. "Annualizing" a particularly profitable calendar quarter of earnings is one way earnings can be exaggerated to make it appear as if the sky is the limit as if to say: 'Earnings are fabulous and they're only going to get better.'"
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Posted: Saturday, July 23rd, 2011
"Isn't it remarkable how complacent bond market investors are about the chances of a default on U.S. debt. In fact, there are many reasons why the yield on the Ten year note should be trading at yields much higher than what we see today, over and above the specter of Congress failing to raise the debt ceiling."
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Posted: Friday, July 22nd, 2011
News in Short - Business 0212
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Posted: Thursday, July 21st, 2011
"The warning goes like this: Any investment can lose money (except money market funds because all they are is cash, right?). Well, maybe. My son, Brian, took a job with a company in Phoenix. Like most companies, his employer offered a 401K plan and there were approximately 20 options from which to choose, a pretty typical range offered by an employer sponsored 401K. He asked me to take a look and find the safest option for him. I had a pretty good idea what to expect so I wasn't surprised by what I found."
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Posted: Tuesday, July 19th, 2011
"If you are an unrepentant market bull, skip to the next article"
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Posted: Saturday, July 9th, 2011
"Over the last decade incomes and job growth have stagnated, causing savings rates to drop. According to Jim Quinn author of the Burning Platform, 60% of retirees have less than $50,000 in savings. Such sums won't last very long, especially when consumer prices are up 3.2%, import prices are up 12.5% and commodity prices are up 35% year over year."
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Posted: Monday, July 4th, 2011
"The gold price has been rising steadily for almost a year now, with nary a correction. It fell only 4% last month, and the biggest decline since last July was January's 6.2% drop. These barely register as "corrections" when one considers that we've had 18 of them greater than 5% since the bull market began in 2001."
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Posted: Tuesday, June 28th, 2011
 "In a letter proudly publicized on a state-sponsored website, Idaho Governor Butch Otter (left, a Republican) describes a program designed to "grow Idaho's Gross Domestic Product" by creating "quality jobs for all Idahoans by fostering systemic growth, recruiting new companies to Idaho, and selling Idaho's trade and investment opportunities to the world." The following is from Governor Otter's announcement of the plan known as Project 60."
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Posted: Tuesday, June 21st, 2011
"Recently we've seen some bad press that has given the municipal bond market some jitters: Jefferson County, Alabama; Vallejo, California; and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In late 2010, Meredith Whitney, a security analyst, called for 50-100 high profile bond defaults in the near future. This report shook up the muni bond market (see chart) and a significant number of investors bailed out due to fear of losses. Bond prices dropped then, but prices have mostly recovered."
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Posted: Saturday, June 11th, 2011
"The jobs numbers echoed the lackluster economic performance in  recent months. Most recoveries from recessions in the post-World II era included several years of robust four-percent growth or better, and President Obama's budget proposal includes assumptions of much faster economic growth than the nation is experiencing."
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Posted: Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
"So will home prices continue to go down? Possibly. But they won't go down forever. At some point the inflation that is already affecting many other segments of the economy will affect home prices as well. That doesn't mean that it will be middle class American families that will be buying up all the homes."
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Posted: Thursday, May 19th, 2011
I have been wanting to discuss a horrifically misleading article found in Businessweek for a week now: Americans Shun Cheapest Homes in 40 Years as Ownership Fades. It is an object lesson in how an industry spokesgroup, engaging in biased analysis, used poor econometric models to create misleading data. That led to others making bad assumptions based on that data, which in turn leads to an unsupported conclusions. To wit, that home prices are now cheap (they are not) and home ownership is being shunned (it is not).
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Posted: Saturday, May 14th, 2011
"Perhaps Pew's most important conclusion is that pension and healthcare obligations are simply running away from the states' abilities to pay them."
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Posted: Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
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Posted: Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
Economism incorporates the belief that men and women are primarily economic beings, focused mainly on 'production, exchange, and consumption. Indeed, economism tries to explain virtually all human motivation and action by economics.'"
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Posted: Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
"Francis highlights a number of the case studies he's collected at his website, The Optimistic Futurist, where motivated individuals have improved their local schools, roads, food, water supply, etc. while earning double-digit returns. These models can be adopted in nearly any community, which is the purpose behind Francis' work."
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Posted: Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
"The White House press secretary sounded quite exuberant about the recent reduction to 8.8% from 8.9%. But the real unemployment rate is much higher, somewhere between the December U-6 classification of 16.7% from the Bureau of Labor Standards and the 22.1% reported by Shadowstats.com, which calculates the percentage the way it was done 30 years ago. Under reporters' radar are the constant revisions to previously reported unemployment claims."
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Posted: Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
"What is real home made ice cream? Oh, I've made it before. It has always struck me that you can't really make real homemade ice cream with an electric machine. Electricity is so artificial, and if you are going to plug in a machine, in what sense are you actually making the stuff? Pouring ingredients into an electric bucket and waiting isn't really "making" anything. You might as well let someone else do that and buy it from them. You might as well make a trip to the freezer section of the grocery store."
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Posted: Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
"There are more horror stories than I think most of us are aware of. The message is the sa me: the gold and silver bullion you possess is valuable, and will be increasingly so, so tell only one other person. And to determine if your home storage is really secure, think like a thief: how likely would someone intent on robbing you find or get to your valuables?"
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Posted: Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
"To be sure, u nlike many investors, I consider cash to actually be an asset class. To put this loathsome asset, i.e., cash, into perspective, Seth Klarman, an outstanding value investor, dissected the faulty rationale that "cash is trash" during an interview in Grant's Interest Rate Observer. To wit:"
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Posted: Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011
"Ironically, Ob ama boasts his initiative 'will help close the clean-energy gap between America and other nations.' But Green says, '(C)ountries are cutting these programs because they realize they aren't sustainable and they are obscenely expensive.'"
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Posted: Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
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Posted: Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
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Posted: Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
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Posted: Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
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Posted: Monday, September 27th, 2010
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Posted: Monday, September 27th, 2010
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Posted: Monday, September 13th, 2010
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Posted: Monday, September 13th, 2010
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Posted: Monday, September 13th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
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Posted: Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
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