Deficit and Debt Are Caused by Baby Boomers, Not Socialism … Yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a lengthy report proposing 103 ways to cut the federal deficit. The report contains plenty of red meat for partisans – from block-granting low-income assistance programs for savings of $404 billion over the next decade, on the right, to imposing a greenhous...Read More
S&P 500 Will Be at 2,000 Sooner Than You Think … Craig Johnson of Piper Jaffray has some bad news for the bears. The S&P 500 (,GSPC) is going to hit his long-time target of 2,000 and it's going to happen sooner than most people think. Johnson is well aware of the fact that a lot of the "smart money" is going to take the other side of his call. Five years into the bull...Read More
Deficit and Debt Are Caused by Baby Boomers, Not Socialism … Yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a lengthy report proposing 103 ways to cut the federal deficit. The report contains plenty of red meat for partisans – from block-granting low-income assistance programs for savings of $404 billion over the next decade, on the right, to imposing a greenhous...Read More
Janet Yellen [defends] Federal Reserve System ultra-easy monetary policy … Janet Yellen, President Barack Obama's nominee to lead the US Federal Reserve, offers a stout defense on Thursday of the central bank's aggressive monetary easing before a Senate panel that includes some tough Republican critics. – The Economic TimesDominant Social Theme: The Fed has a job to do. Let'...Read More
A strain of bird flu that scientists thought could not infect people has shown up in a Taiwanese woman, a nasty surprise that shows scientists must do more to spot worrisome flu strains before they ignite a global outbreak, doctors say. On a more hopeful front, two pharmaceuticals separately reported encouraging results from human tests of a possible vaccine against a different type of bird flu th...Read More
Janet Yellen [defends] Federal Reserve System ultra-easy monetary policy … Janet Yellen, President Barack Obama's nominee to lead the US Federal Reserve, offers a stout defense on Thursday of the central bank's aggressive monetary easing before a Senate panel that includes some tough Republican critics. – The Economic TimesDominant Social Theme: The Fed has a job to do. Let'...Read More
A strain of bird flu that scientists thought could not infect people has shown up in a Taiwanese woman, a nasty surprise that shows scientists must do more to spot worrisome flu strains before they ignite a global outbreak, doctors say. On a more hopeful front, two pharmaceuticals separately reported encouraging results from human tests of a possible vaccine against a different type of bird flu th...Read More
Bank of England says the UK recovery has taken hold … Mark Carney: "For the first time in a long time, you do not have to be an optimist to see the glass is half full" … Bank of England governor Mark Carney says the UK recovery has "taken hold" and unemployment will fall sooner than it had forecast. The comments came in the Bank's latest quarterly inflation repo...Read More
A Bitcoin Exchange Holding $4.1 Million For 1,000 Customers Has Simply Vanished … A Chinese Bitcoin exchange that held up to $4.1 million in users' accounts has gone offline and everyone involved with it has vanished, according to CoinDesk. – Business InsiderDominant Social Theme: Bitcoin is a suspicious kind of money.Free-Market Analysis: We've written several articles somewha...Read More
Bank of England says the UK recovery has taken hold … Mark Carney: "For the first time in a long time, you do not have to be an optimist to see the glass is half full" … Bank of England governor Mark Carney says the UK recovery has "taken hold" and unemployment will fall sooner than it had forecast. The comments came in the Bank's latest quarterly inflation repo...Read More
A Bitcoin Exchange Holding $4.1 Million For 1,000 Customers Has Simply Vanished … A Chinese Bitcoin exchange that held up to $4.1 million in users' accounts has gone offline and everyone involved with it has vanished, according to CoinDesk. – Business InsiderDominant Social Theme: Bitcoin is a suspicious kind of money.Free-Market Analysis: We've written several articles somewha...Read More
The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push … The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America's push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply. Even the cemetery that disappeared like an apparition into a cornfield. It wasn't supposed to be this way. With the Iowa political c...Read More
Typhoon Haiyan 'the result of climate change' … The Philippines delegate at the UN Climate Change talks that began on Monday has blamed Typhoon Haiyan on climate change, and urged sceptics to 'get off their ivory towers'. Naderev "Yeb" Sano, representative for the Philippines at the UN Climate Change talks, broke down in tears as he addressed delegates in Warsaw. Mr...Read More
The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push … The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America's push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply. Even the cemetery that disappeared like an apparition into a cornfield. It wasn't supposed to be this way. With the Iowa political c...Read More
Typhoon Haiyan 'the result of climate change' … The Philippines delegate at the UN Climate Change talks that began on Monday has blamed Typhoon Haiyan on climate change, and urged sceptics to 'get off their ivory towers'. Naderev "Yeb" Sano, representative for the Philippines at the UN Climate Change talks, broke down in tears as he addressed delegates in Warsaw. Mr...Read More
Reports of the survival of the eurozone may have been greatly exaggerated … Last week's surprise interest rate cut by the European Central Bank (ECB) may have been taken as good news by the markets, but it was largely a response to the looming danger of deflation in the eurozone. And that is not good news at all. It is a severe problem of economic forecasting that if you manage to identi...Read More
The lessons from Obamacare's flawed Web launch … As the president has recognized, the failure of his administration to deliver a functioning website that Americans can use to enroll in Obamacare represents an inexcusable error. Having succeeded after more than a century of failed efforts in achieving the progressive dream goal of legislating universal health insurance in America, it is t...Read More
Reports of the survival of the eurozone may have been greatly exaggerated … Last week's surprise interest rate cut by the European Central Bank (ECB) may have been taken as good news by the markets, but it was largely a response to the looming danger of deflation in the eurozone. And that is not good news at all. It is a severe problem of economic forecasting that if you manage to identi...Read More
The lessons from Obamacare's flawed Web launch … As the president has recognized, the failure of his administration to deliver a functioning website that Americans can use to enroll in Obamacare represents an inexcusable error. Having succeeded after more than a century of failed efforts in achieving the progressive dream goal of legislating universal health insurance in America, it is t...Read More
Investor's Digest of Canada, MPL Communications Inc.133 Richmond St.W., Toronto, ON, M5H 3M8. 1-800-804-8846 - Edited from an article by Keith Richards By this time, you already know America isn't going to go over the fiscal cliff - at least not yet. Just as this paper was going to press, Congress and President Obama succeeded in bringing an end to the stand off that had threatened to shut dow...Read More