December 7, 2023 You probably heard… A legend passed away last week. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s longtime partner, went to his final reward at the age of 99! We gave him a mention earlier this year in an article about the Oracle of Omaha. But, as hard to believe as it might be, it was …
December 5, 2023 Fed Chairmen go to great lengths to imply how almighty and powerful the Federal Reserve truly is. Jerome Powell is no different. You know better. We talk about it here all the time, but just to show how epically feckless (and clueless and powerless) the Fed really is, let’s take a look …
November 30, 2023 In 1944, MGM released a psychological thriller starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotton and Angela Landsbury. (Maybe before some of your times, maybe right in your wheelhouse.) It was about a con man who slowly manipulates his wife into thinking she’s going crazy. It was called Gaslight. Whether its original meaning …
November 28, 2023 There’s been a certain jubilation in the market these past couple weeks. Since we’ve gotten past the nastiness of August through October, stocks have been on a tear rallying to retest all time highs from July. There are a number of reasons for the rally. AI and big tech is still a …
November 23, 2023 We’re celebrating our Thanksgiving holiday here in the US today. It’s a time to gather with family and friends and give thanks for each other and all that we have. It’s also the time of year the media writes articles telling you your Thanksgiving feast isn’t costing you as much as last …
November 21, 2023 Don’t let anyone tell you Janet Yellen isn’t tricky! You don’t spend your whole life in government service (when you’re not in academia) and not learn a thing or two about squeezing around speed bumps. Witness her latest sleight of hand… The High Cost of Debt We’ve started turning our attention a …
November 16, 2023 Jerome Powell has a problem. In truth he’s got a lot of problems. He can’t get inflation to budge. His spike in interest rates have put much of the banking industry at risk. And his buddy Janet Yellen has to finance and refinance some $10 trillion in debt all at the higher …
November 14, 2023 He was born Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi but his friends called him “Chuck” (maybe). Charles Ponzi got famous in the summer of 1919 after discovering “international reply coupons” or IRCs. IRCs were prepaid postage coupons that could be sent from a person in one country to someone in another, and …
November 9, 2023 In the wake of the great financial crisis (GFCTM) of 2008, a new and slightly unsettling phrase entered our financial vocabulary. It referred to the biggest of the big financial institutions in the world. The phrase “officially” described these banks as Systemically Important Financial Institutions. You know them better by a different …
November 7, 2023 Last Wednesday, the Fed chair stepped to the podium after the latest FOMC pow wow and said… Pretty much nothing new. In his typical Fed-speak manner, he spoke for 10 minutes and answered questions for about another 40 and really didn’t say anything the market didn’t know. The FOMC decided to leave …
