The Greek tragedy continues to play out in slow motion, oil finds a bid, and how earnings will end up this quarter is on everyone’s mind. And, our morning train reads:
• The “Misery” Index Falls to an 8 Year Low (Pragmatic Capitalism) see also Fed’s Rate Dilemma: Job Gains vs. Low Inflation (WSJ)
• Most Innovative Companies 2015 (Fast Company)
• Hedge Funds Keep Winning Despite Losing (WSJ)
• Shark Tank: The lost pitches (Fortune)
• How the Markets Tempt Us Into Making Mistakes (A Wealth of Common Sense)
I thought this was interesting, I wonder if the republican party will be looking at this strategy for the next election cycle…
David Cameron urges business leaders to offer pay rises in bid to thwart Labour
“David Cameron will tell Britain’s business leaders on Tuesday that the best way to protect themselves against ‘attacks’ from Ed Miliband is to reward their workers with a pay rise.”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/10/david-cameron-urges-business-pay-rises-thwart-labour
David Cameron doesn’t have endless PACs and the Citizens United ruling. As a result, he is still reliant on voters instead of billionaires. That problem has been solved in the United States. The American hereditary and recently-monied aristocracy is much more effective now than the British. Obama appears to have been the accidental interloper between a largely unbroken multi-decade rule by the Bush and Clinton PACs.
Despite the “misery index” being down, new evidence that half of America is broke:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/09/new-evidence-half-america-broke
Remember Buffett’s million dollar bet against the hedge fund industry???
http://www.businessinsider.com/buffett-still-beats-on-million-dollar-bet-2015-2
On The Fed Credibility Gap
…Markets are pricing in a secular stagnation story. The decline in long yields is also consistent with that story. So at the moment, financial market participants are saying the Fed has less room to maneuver than monetary policymakers believe. The Fed, I fear, is not taking sufficient heed of those signals.
So what is the FED to do???? I think this quote is basically correct, I don’t see FED successfully raising rates.
The question I have is how can the FED raise rates when the most of the industrialized world (Russia and Brazil are exceptions but they have their own set of issues and they aren’t traditionally part of the industrialized world) at zero or negative rates. My answer is the FED can’t raise rates and make it hold. If the FED does raise rates without the rest of the world, the value of the dollar will increase dramatically thus killing exports and profits of the multinationals.
So unless the world changes rapidly and dramatically I don’t think the FED can raise rates and make it stick. We are in a deflationary world. Commodities are the straw in the wind, look at ag commodities, oil etc.
Appreciate comments from those that know much more than I do about this subject.
What exports? The USA is a net importer. When did you last see anything made in USA, other than a car?
WSJ final figures out Hedge Funds.
“…Recommending low-cost balanced mutual funds can be hard to justify if one has a well-paid job at a big pension fund or endowment. Properly allocating money to hedge funds is seen as a bigger challenge…”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/hedge-funds-keep-winning-despite-losing-1423454488
This blog, the commentators etc have been saying this for years. Thanks Rupert Murdoch for catching up. I see an analogy to your ridiculously easy to shred with facts, Opinion page, a make-work program for tired, angry old white guys who disagree with whatever Obama did that tripled the market.
Apple tinkers with their balance sheet.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-plans-two-part-swiss-franc-bond-sale-1423559822
One problem with all this screaming about “off shore” money is that it’s not offshore.
“…Apple’s $102 billion in offshore profits is actually managed by one of its wholly owned subsidiaries in Reno, Nev., according to the Senate report on the company’s tax avoidance. The money is tracked by Apple company bookkeepers in Austin, Tex. What’s more, the funds are held in bank accounts in New York…”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/business/for-us-companies-money-offshore-means-manhattan.html
The second problem is the Only Thing “trapped” Off-Shore is Tax Revenue.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/tax-reform/report/2014/01/09/81681/offshore-corporate-
profits-the-only-thing-trapped-is-tax-revenue/
the thrid issue is how YOUR voting caused this, and you memory doesn’t hold the facts. Reagan passed the law that let’s this loophole exist (Yes and Reagan disaster) so just end Reagan’s Loophole.
“…”…But in 1986 Congress changed the rules, retaining the penalty tax on domestic cash hoarding but allowing multinationals to hold unlimited amounts of cash so long as they sent the money offshore. This act incentivized the enormous world of offshore tax avoidance we see today…”
http://www.amazon.com/Perfectly-Legal-Campaign-Rich—Everybody/dp/1591840694/
Don’t blame corporations and for god sakes don’t blame Obama. This is Reagan’s fault.
End the loophole and that’s that.
A day or two ago under the what will Uber economy mean as true disruption car dealers came up. This article is about buying over the net for used cars: http://www.philly.com/philly/classifieds/cars/Dealers_challenged_by_smartphone_car_buyers.html
This is one of the most depressing pieces I have ever read. Not so much because of the conclusions, but because the assumptions that the American foreign policy folks have apparently been moving forward with for decades existed in the first place.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-hundred-year-marathon-excerpt-2015-2
If we only look at foreign nations and cultures through a WASP/Catholic American-Euro centric perspective, then we are doomed on the foreign policy front. Hitler wrote most of his goals and strategies down in Mein Kampf and everybody ignored it until he moved to execute the plan with major military force. The Chinese have followed Sun-Tzu for hundreds of years as well as playing Go. Why would we think they would be executing foreign policy based on Washington DC based principles? If the past couple of decades in the Middle East hasn’t taught us that large swathes of the world don’t want to “be American”, then we have learned nothing.
We made the same mistake in the Vietnam War by viewing Vietnam as a Communist puppet of Russia instead of Vietnam using Russia as a “friend” in a half-century war for independence from colonial powers. When the Americans stepped in they were just taking the place of the French as the colonial power. We didn’t even figure out who was actually running the country and its strategy!
http://www.c-span.org/video/?308235-14/hanois-war
http://www.amazon.com/Hanois-War-International-History-Vietnam/dp/080783551X
Kyle Bass to go after patents
“The beautiful thing is this will lower drug prices for everyone.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/kyle-bass-files-first-ipr-petition-2015-2
When Obama does it, it will stop much-needed investment, kill jobs, and ruin America.
When a Texan does it, it’s courageous.
We are going to be allowed to eat egg yolks again.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/10/feds-poised-to-withdraw-longstanding-warnings-about-dietary-cholesterol/?tid=pm_pop