By now, you all know that S&P downgraded 9 eurozone countries debt ratings on Friday. The markets yawned at the news, and truthfully with the exception of the Italian cruise ship tragedy, Europe hasn’t made a major headline in weeks. That said the continents debt woes continue to deteriorate, and the only significant force that [...]
December is a month where families mostly turn their focus within, and economic analysts turn their focus outward to make projections for the coming New Year. Before we discuss the utility of these projections, let’s focus on the global headwinds that will challenge policy makers looking to sculpt economic recovery from an ugly lump of [...]
Leadership is the delicate balance between the constraints of reality and possibilities, if one were to make the optimum or nearly optimum set of decisions. As it relates to debt, the constraint is a rule that says you can reduce private debt, and you can reduce public debt, and you can even run a trade [...]
Deutsche Bank’s Colin Tan spoke Monday about the European debt crisis and explained that it is not inconceivable that we could be in full crisis mode by the end of this week thanks to Italy. “The situation feels increasingly like one that has little chance of materially improving until some extreme pressure is on the [...]
With short term interest rates near zero and the economy still very weak, Goldman believes the best way for Fed officials to ease policy significantly further would be for the Fed to target a nominal GDP path, the plan calls for additional asset purchases to help bring actual nominal GDP back to trend over time. [...]
The attached slides present the most recent data available to gauge the progress of our economic recovery. A Gallup poll taken last month showed that confidence in the economy has fallen to its lowest level since March 2009, which was near the low point of the recent recession. Alpha Fiduciary has been monitoring a growing [...]
The Eurozone debt has been one of the root causes of excessive market volatility since July 2011, even though the scope of the problems have been known for the better part of two years. With the exception of a handful of economists, until recently the popular belief was that debt problems in smaller nations like [...]
David Beers, head of sovereign ratings at S&P defended the actions of his firm saying, “we take our responsibilities very seriously and if at the end of our analysis the committee concludes that a rating isn’t where we believe it should be, it’s our duty to make that call.” Okay, I can respect that fact, [...]
The United States Congress has been locked in a battle of ideals focused on raising taxes and cutting spending with the obvious goal of achieving fiscal sustainability. On Friday President Obama stated “I have not seen a credible plan, having gone through the numbers, that would allow you to get $2.4 Trillion in proposed spending [...]
We are re-posting an article from Gregor MacDonald, who is a well known oil analyst and energy sector investor, on the implications of the release of 60 million barrels of oil from the OECD inventories: “IEA in Paris announced this morning a release of 60 million barrels from OECD inventories. The implications of this extraordinary [...]
By now, you all know that S&P downgraded 9 eurozone countries debt ratings on Friday. The markets yawned at the news, and truthfully with the exception of the Italian cruise ship tragedy, Europe hasn’t made a major headline in weeks. That said the continents debt woes continue to deteriorate, and the only significant force that [...]
December is a month where families mostly turn their focus within, and economic analysts turn their focus outward to make projections for the coming New Year. Before we discuss the utility of these projections, let’s focus on the global headwinds that will challenge policy makers looking to sculpt economic recovery from an ugly lump of [...]
Leadership is the delicate balance between the constraints of reality and possibilities, if one were to make the optimum or nearly optimum set of decisions. As it relates to debt, the constraint is a rule that says you can reduce private debt, and you can reduce public debt, and you can even run a trade [...]
Deutsche Bank’s Colin Tan spoke Monday about the European debt crisis and explained that it is not inconceivable that we could be in full crisis mode by the end of this week thanks to Italy. “The situation feels increasingly like one that has little chance of materially improving until some extreme pressure is on the [...]
With short term interest rates near zero and the economy still very weak, Goldman believes the best way for Fed officials to ease policy significantly further would be for the Fed to target a nominal GDP path, the plan calls for additional asset purchases to help bring actual nominal GDP back to trend over time. [...]
The attached slides present the most recent data available to gauge the progress of our economic recovery. A Gallup poll taken last month showed that confidence in the economy has fallen to its lowest level since March 2009, which was near the low point of the recent recession. Alpha Fiduciary has been monitoring a growing [...]
The Eurozone debt has been one of the root causes of excessive market volatility since July 2011, even though the scope of the problems have been known for the better part of two years. With the exception of a handful of economists, until recently the popular belief was that debt problems in smaller nations like [...]
David Beers, head of sovereign ratings at S&P defended the actions of his firm saying, “we take our responsibilities very seriously and if at the end of our analysis the committee concludes that a rating isn’t where we believe it should be, it’s our duty to make that call.” Okay, I can respect that fact, [...]
The United States Congress has been locked in a battle of ideals focused on raising taxes and cutting spending with the obvious goal of achieving fiscal sustainability. On Friday President Obama stated “I have not seen a credible plan, having gone through the numbers, that would allow you to get $2.4 Trillion in proposed spending [...]
We are re-posting an article from Gregor MacDonald, who is a well known oil analyst and energy sector investor, on the implications of the release of 60 million barrels of oil from the OECD inventories: “IEA in Paris announced this morning a release of 60 million barrels from OECD inventories. The implications of this extraordinary [...]
