Perspectives
How A Banking Panic Differs From A Banking Crisis
The closing of three financial institutions in the past week has sent a sense of crisis through the financial world. Deposits are insured at FDIC institutions up to $250,000. Some accounts are many times this number. Venture capitalists (VCs) typically deposit in the...
To Reduce Inflation And Not Sink The Economy: Increase The Work Force
It should be obvious by now to everyone that increasing interest rates to slow the economy is not resulting in lower inflation. It is obvious to the Federal Reserve, who nevertheless continues to increase rates to kill the patient to make the procedure successful. The...
Playing With The Country’s FICO Score: Possible Consequences Of Debt Standoff
As of last Thursday, the United States Government reached the limit of its authority to borrow. While some evasive actions are being initiated by the Treasury Department to keep the government open and pay its obligations, these steps are expected to be exhausted...
Fearless Forecast 2023: You Can’t Go Home Again
Asheville, North Carolina holds a special place for the writer and native son Thomas Wolfe, whose 1940 novel’s title You Can’t Go Home Again is a fitting framing for investing in 2023. Many investors are trying to treat the events of 2022 as an aberration in...
“Fortune Favors The Bold” But Not The Gullible: The Ongoing Bitcoin Implosion
The current bankruptcy of bitcoin exchange FTX is sending shockwaves throughout the bitcoin industry. Billions of dollars of bitcoin investments cannot be accounted for. Celebrities like Tom Brady and Matt Damon have been exposed as paid hacks who sold their...
Is The Growth Stock Correction Over? Not Yet
With the sale of Twitter to Elon Musk last week, a syndicate of banks had previously offered to loan Mr. Musk $13 billion to help pay for the $44 billion deal. The intentions of the banks were to turn around and sell the debt to the investing public as bonds...
Perception Vs. Reality. Why Bonds Are Not A Safe Haven
Advocates of formulaic investing along the lines of 60 percent stocks, 40 percent bonds are not doing so well these days. Year to date, bond indexes are down about 13 percent. This is the second consecutive year of negative returns from fixed income. While this may be...
What Happens To Stocks When Interest Rates Rise? A Historical Pattern Gives Us A Clue
Like today, in 1979 the perception was that inflation was out of control. The hapless administration of G. William Miller at the Federal Reserve had left its reputation for control of the purchasing power of the US Dollar in tatters. Every time...
Oil Refinery Economics: How A Shortage Of Refineries Cause An Increase In Gas Prices
Economics 101 - Law of Supply and Demand: legislating oil refineries decreases supply With the exception of a small refinery launched in North Dakota in 2014, no new oil refineries have been built in the United States since 1976. In 1972, Richard Nixon...