Happy Cinco de Mayo day. Here are our West Coast derived, not so early morning reads:
• The 2015 Rich List: The Highest Earning Hedge Fund Managers of the Past Year (Institutional Investors Alpha)
• The Merger Boom Is Far From Over: Regulators scotched two major acquisitions, but that doesn’t mean corporate deal-making will slow. The key driver: excess cash. (Barron’s)
• Buffett and Gross Agree: Slump in 30-Year Bonds Makes Good Sense (Bloomberg) see also Global growth report card – is the world slowdown temporary? (FT)
• U.S. Homeownership at 25 Year Low, Non-Occupant Owners at Record High (World Property Journal)
• Most People in the World Have No Idea How to Manage Their Money: Many couldn’t pass a simple finance quiz. Can you? (The Atlantic)
• The Revolution Will Be Periscoped (Reformed Broker)
• Tesla’s New Home-Based Battery Isn’t Just Nifty. It’s Liberating. (Slate)
• 37 ‘Star Wars’ Facts for Star Wars Day (Mental Floss)
• The cult of healthy eating has more in common with religion than science (Quartz)
• 7 Important Life Lessons Everyone Learns the Hard Way (Marc and Angel Hack Life)
What are you reading?
The Palmer Drought Index
Source: Bloomberg
Yesterday on the annual three hour Warren Buffet special Joe Kernan was much better behaved until the very last question:
“What could Hillary Clinton every do that would stop you from supporting her!?”
That, in a nutshell, is how Republican’s are losing the people. Their gerrymandering, unlimited money, and phony investigations may make them feel like they’re heading to the their ultimate goal, no taxes, welfare even for the uber wealthy, but how can anyone take Republican seriously?
Today on CNBC Rick SanYelli shouted that “if you don’t like taxes move to neighboring states!”
Why doesn’t he move then?
Hey Santelli GO AWAY!
His Job is to hang around until CNBC’s ratings have fallen to Zero
He has almost completed his task!
i thought his goal was to get to negative numbers?
David Rosenberg is still bullish on stocks
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/newsletters15/David_Rosenberg-Bullish_on_Stocks.php
When brain surgeons are morons …
I heard Ben Carson was bashing the social safety net and the perverse way it distorts incentive and creates dependency.
I presume he was referring to the whiny big banks and financial sector welfare queens?
Dodd Frank was watered down.
“…What Warren wanted to talk about was an item tucked into page 615 of a 1,603-page spending package: the repeal of section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Known as the swaps push-out rule, section 716 required banks to set up separate subsidiaries, not backed by the government, to trade certain derivatives. If the rule stood, it would generate huge administrative costs for the big banks…. The rule passed.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-05/why-elizabeth-warren-makes-wall-street-tremble
So the taxpayer is on the hook to insure big banks swaps business.
Why aren’t the government’s in there insuring your business GOP. Call your lobbyist!
Why not trade swaps on exchanges?
It’s so Duh… I just which people would stop falling for the Republican bs.
The Rich List indicates how much the Carried Interest loophole in tax law is valued. The missed tax for 2014 and 2013 would be $2,277 and $4,145 Billion (39.6% vs 20%). All for 25 people.
And our elected representatives hold news conferences about still paying social security to potential dead people over 100 year old. At all of $15,000 each. It takes 1.4 million supposedly dead recipients to equal one year of Carried Interest.
@Gnatman – great point second para.
From the Slate article: ‘[Tesla] unveiled a new home-based battery that can store electricity and serve as a backup generator.’
No. A generator converts mechanical energy to electrical power. A battery stores electrical power. A battery might substitute for a generator, but it is not a “backup generator.”
As real electricians are wont to say, “Wiring is not a hobby.”
Jump in March Trade Deficit Means GDP Fell in First Quarter
The sharp jump in the March trade deficit reported this morning means that GDP in the first quarter will be revised into negative territory. …
This is a really big deal, much bigger than the news about greater or smaller than expected budget deficits that can often be found on the front page. There is no easy mechanism to offset the demand lost as a result of a trade deficit that was running at more than a $600 billion annual rate in March.
Another Republican Liar enters the race.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/05/05/fact-check-huckabee-economy-health-care-tax-cuts/26937865/
Let’s face it, the GOP screaming that Obama is the worst president ever is a defense mechanism, a mass psychosis from the fact that Bush (whose policies they supported down the line) is unarguably the worst President ever.
As the GOP keeps screaming the “World’s on Fire” Boehner repeated the phrase last week himself…
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/boehner-israel-jerusalem-isil-netanyahu-iran-116600.html
… the more the moderates they want to attract are asking what are those Republican’s thinking.
US approves ferry service between Cuba and Florida
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-32602923
Time for the Republicans to come out shouting. C’mon Rubio make an ass out of yourself.
“Ug99 is a strain of wheat stem rust that was first identified in Uganda in 1998 (and named in 1999). By 2001, Ug99 began appearing in fields in Kenya; in Ethiopia by 2003; Sudan and Yemen by 2006; and Iran a year later. It now plagues wheat plants in nine African and Middle Eastern countries. Should the pathogen establish a global presence, 90 percent of wheat varieties could succumb, with whole crops flopping over and rotting within weeks or months of infection. The annual global harvest of some 700 million tons of wheat would be decimated.”
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/40085/title/Putting-Up-Resistance/
The stupid burns…
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/05/the_ludicrous_myth_of_republican_fiscal_responsibility_a_history_lesson_for_the_modern_gop/
The Palmer-Z index brings a whole new meaning to the terms “Red States” and “Purple States”.
BTW – just focusing on one month can give a misleading picture in some areas. I live in one of the areas in the northeast that is borderline between moderate and severe drought. That just meant we didn’t get much snow that month and it was too cold to rain. We had over two feet of snow on the ground most of March with probably 2″-4″ of water locked up in it.