Russian President Vladimir Putin said he doesn’t think the European community can do without the natural gas it gets from energy monopoly Gazprom. With a Russian economy starting to decline, however, it may be Gazprom that’s too strongly interconnected to the European market to break free. The narrative over European energy security reaches at least […]
Will Putin Lose His Eastern European Energy Gamble? Read More »
And Where We are Going? Policy Makers- Blowing Bubbles Again Many hard-working Americans are scratching their collective heads about the following questions: Why have stocks performed in a manner that seems to be out of step with the relatively slow pace of economic expansion? Why has the economic recovery failed to gain traction, even though
Investors: Do You Know How We Got Here… Read More »
The wealth effect has been used as a justification for quantitative easing and a root cause of consistent overly optimistic growth expectations by the Federal Open Market Committee. The Fed’s over reliance on the so-called “wealth effect,” is a major cause of this optimism and consistently wrong projections. The wealth effect says that an increase in consumer wealth, through higher stock prices or home values will lead to increased consumer spending.
Research suggests that the concept of a wealth effect is in fact deeply flawed. It is unfortunate that the FOMC has relied on this flawed concept to experiment with over $3 trillion in asset purchases and continues to use it as the basis for what we believe are overly optimistic growth expectations.
How’s the Wealth Effect Really Doing? Read More »
In the United States we consider a family with a household income of less than $100,000 to be “Middle Class”. But how well are families really doing? Let’s look at middle class income, net worth, taxes, etc since the recession of 2008. According to the 2010 census, the median household income was $51,371. Which means that half the households earn more and half earn less.
If we break the population up into 5 segments of 20% each we can get a closer look at how the population as a whole is doing. Based on the $100,000 definition, the “middle class” probably comprises segments 3 and 4 of the total population. Households in the top 20% earned about $239,100 per household and those in the bottom 20% earned about $24,100 before taxes. But that doesn’t tell the whole story…
How is the Middle Class in the U.S. Doing? (Infographic) Read More »
Throughout Europe regions that were once independent are seeking to shed the shackles of their non-productive neighbors. Those areas that feel they are paying more in taxes than they are receiving in benefits are looking to their historical roots and dreaming of independence. Among them are Scotland, Catalan, Spain and Venice, Italy.
Separatist Forces Growing in Europe Read More »
There is an old saying, “Those who do not study the past are condemned to repeat it” and another that goes along with it which says, “History may not repeat itself but it does rhyme.”
Recently I came across some articles that we published quite a few years ago but I thought they were worth mentioning again in an effort to learn from the past. So here they are:
