Paul Volcker, past FED Chair, held forth to the new York Economics Club.   Like yours truly, he warns of letting inflationary expectations and a weak dollar continue. Greenspan meanwhile continues to speak denying that he had anything to do with the current problems. Do you know about CIFUS?  At a time when Merrill and…

The IMF will sell 14 M ounces of gold. Let’s see, gold is worth more than ever at $900 per ounce. So let’s sell the gold to make a short term profit and then we can lend more money to dictators in African countries who perpetuate worthless currencies and hostile economic policies. If the IMF…

on If supply meets demand at $100 oil,what happens when demand exceeds supply? Read this article about Peak Oil.  The Far East will only demand more oil.  As the article suggests, I suspect we won’t be producing more than 100 M barrels a day of the stuff. Here is the link to the article on…

Barons reports that the SEC website last Friday apparently let everyone off the hook as to valuing Level Three Assets. In short you can declare that the values in a distress sale are not real values therefore one does not have to use them. Did this bring a rally in otherwise depressed financial shares?  Very…

Okay who is third behind Gates and Buffet, do you know Sheldon Adelson?   Bill Harrah did well by understanding America’s fascination with gaming, Adelson has done really well.  Please read the article and notice just how much income is generated by just a few gamblers. This is clear in the movie Casino. But Adelson really…

Mark Hulbert takes  a look at airlines. Airlines, with oil at $100?.  I mentioned SW Air LUV in class last week. Whatever day, the news was breaking over inspection failures and cracks in the planes which were grounded. Bingo, the stock dropped to the mid 11s, I suggested it was a buy.  The class thougt…

Michael Dell held his first analyst meeting in three years.   Dell is closing an Austin manufacturing plant and looking to cut costs declaring there are no fixed costs. Operating expenses have ballooned 65% while sales only increased 10%, whoops.  Only a few years back one of the finance textbooks swooned over how wonderful DELL…

Jonathan Hoenig holds forth on social safety nets.   He suggests that they are downright dangerous. Indeed I read an article suggesting that the ecoomy is somewhat safe in that many people now work for the government.  And they don’t lay people off.  True enough but do you see anytrhing wrong with that thinking.  A…

It just keeps getting worse for newspapers. Here is the latest for year over year ad revenue changes.   If you can see what they should do, you will certainly make yourself famous as a consultant.

Here is a comparison of where Obama would take us versus what JFK actually proposed and did.