I’m reluctant to say anything positive about CNN. It annoys my Republican friends and confuses my Democratic friends, but I appreciated the CNN production of “The Fourth in America” which just presented music and fireworks from across the nation with absolutely no political bias. Like the V-8 commercials . . . thanks, I needed that! Confession is good for the soul, and I confess to…
With all due sympathy to the respective families, it has been painful to watch the slow-motion tragedy at the Titanic gravesite. Predictably, critics who enjoy labeling others as stupid are promptly labeling the dead as stupid. I object to that! I remember a Master Sergeant telling me on a rainy Friday night long ago that “unless you look death in the eye, lieutenant, how do…
It takes some discipline to write an economic blog about something unimportant. Today’s inflation report showed that inflation has decreased for eleven straight months – ELEVEN STRAIGHT MONTHS. Expecting year-over-year inflation of 4.1%, it is only 4.0%. That’s a long way from 9.1% last year. The Fed’s goal is a mere 2.0% rate of inflation. Of course, wringing the last percentage point out of inflation…
Sometimes, a book will color your perspective forever. Such a book for me was The $elling of the President 1968 by the late Joe McGinniss. He changed the way we look at elections. Some professors would tell us that elections are contests between “philosophies and visions.” Others explain that elections are contests between mere personalities. McGinniss would argue elections are marketing contests, like the sales…
Existentialism was made for days like yesterday. Man’s inhumanity to man was demonstrated with the evil brilliance of Putin who blew up the Ukrainian dam, causing an unknown loss of life, billions of dollars of destruction, and effectively forestalling the expected military counter-offensive of Ukraine. It could be a turning point in this war. Later in the day, the venerated sport of golf was forced…
In 1958, a New Zealand born economist named William Phillips noted an odd relationship between inflation and unemployment. The “Phillips Curve” was born! For years, it was believed that the way to lower unemployment was to increase inflation, and the way to decrease inflation was to increase unemployment. This “inverse relationship” was hailed as an intellectual breakout . . . until the stagflation of the…
With kudos to the President and the Speaker, we now have a tentative deal to raise the debt ceiling. Of course, there is always something for each person to disagree with, and here is mine. The deal on the table merely postpones the expiration of the new debt ceiling for almost two years. We’ll have another opportunity to lose our AAA credit rating in January…
I yield to no person in my disdain and disgust with both the MAGA Republicans and the ANTIFA Democrats. However, because it has been so long, I sometimes worry about losing my appreciation of MODERATE Republicans and MODERATE Democrats. Thankfully, I have friends like Bob & Leslie, who sent me an birthday card saying: “The most important party today is not the Democratic Party or…
Most people see me as a big-bad-guy. What they don’t see is a big-bad-guy who cries . . . once a year, every year . . . on Memorial Day. On Veterans Day, above the hollow roar of “thank-you-for-your-service”, we pay respect to veterans who are still living. On Memorial Day, we honor the dead veterans who died in service. Unfortunately, the honor due to…
There’s an old Latin proverb that said “necessity is the mother of invention.” Unfortunately, that provided very little comfort during 2011, as politicians wrestled with increasing our maximum debt ceiling, just like they’re still doing today. The last time I lost sleep about our economy was July 30th of that year. The next day, President Obama announced that the debt ceiling would be raised and…
When I was in my early teen years, a new family moved two doors away. They had a daughter a few years younger than myself. Her name was Shirley, and she was challenged with Down Syndrome. Like most all victims of that terrible disease, she was invariably happy and friendly. My parents always insisted that I treat her normally. In fact, my father insisted I…
According to Greek mythology, Pandora opened a box that had been left in her husband’s care, releasing “sickness, death, and unspecified evils”. That was 700 B.C., which means the world has already survived some 2,723 years since the box was opened. In 1945, the phrase “black box” was first used to describe a electrical box that did things – even though people were “without knowledge…
My father will be 100 years old in four months and has been a deep red-blooded Republican all those years. Humorously, in 1981 when Barbara Mandrell sang her classic “I was county when country wasn’t cool,” my father joked that he hated the media before hating the media was cool. I remember that whenever I agree with him about the media . . . like…
I’ve never been in a movie theater when someone yelled “FIRE”, but I’m told that people completely overreact and panic, but I have been in an economy when someone yelled “INFLATION” and people do completely overreact. One more time — this is not your father’s inflation! He got burned by inflation decades ago! Full year inflation for both 1979 and 1980 was double-digit, 13.3% in…
Military officers should look and act dignified but not prissy. For myself, this indignity training consisted of “low-crawling” (on our belly) across a sewage-drying facility in Fort Benning, Georgia. It was probably only 50 yards across (4″-6″ deep), but it seemed like a 26-2 mile marathon. I suppose nobody could possibly be “prissy” after that? While awaiting deployment, some important person died, whose name I…
Halloween is a silly recurring event that scares children. The Debt Ceiling debate is a stupid recurring event that scares adults. At least Halloween adds a tiny bit to GDP with candy and costume sales. Because increased uncertainly is bad for business, the Debt Ceiling debate only subtracts from GDP in delayed capital expenditures, like factories. The Debt Ceiling debate has never reduced spending by…
Since 1976, there have been nine films in the “Rocky” franchise, costing about $270 million but with revenues of about $2 billion. The first in the series won a well-deserved Best Picture Oscar at the 1977 Academy Awards. In each, Rocky or Creed is the lead character, and he suffers greatly. In fact, he becomes a bloody mess just before rallying and becoming great again.…
When I was with Citicorp out of New York, my biggest customer was Trammel Crow of Dallas. He was a man of immense wealth and absolute integrity. One of my first duties in underwriting his credit was to verify a story that he repaid a debt he didn’t know about and had no legal requirement to repay. It was only about $240 thousand and had…
Last week, inflation in Argentina reached 501 percent – staggering but not even near the worst in Argentine history. Partially as a result, the Argentine president promptly resigned. I was in Argentina two months ago and noticed that prices were cheap when spending American dollars. (The only over-priced items we noticed was anything to do with their World Cup victory this year.) With soaring interest…
One of the many problems with guns is that they make everything more complicated! When my father handed me my first gun, there was no paperwork, but that was in the last century. It wasn’t complicated. Today, when a decedent owns a gun, it will be an asset in settling an estate, but it can get very complicated, especially for the executor or administrator, exposing…
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As we all know, husbands and wives can often disagree. The recent case of a young Air National Guardsman leaking confidential reports illustrates the point. I would characterize him as young punk with more opinions than thoughts, who should learn that the punishment for treason is, as Samuel Johnson’s famously said “There’s nothing like a hanging in the morning to clear a man’s thoughts.” Wives…
I’ve been saying it for almost a year now — “this ain’t your father’s inflation.” I was surprised last year when people “freaked-out” over the outbreak of inflation. Of course, I knew that, since the outbreak of inflation during the early 1980’s, we have learned a few things and even had a new tool. Year-over-year wholesale prices rose only 2.7% last month, close to the…
I’m a gun-lover. I enjoy holding anything so finely machined and listening to the quiet click as a finely lubricated cylinder rotates. Of course, I also marvel at the contrast between that beauty and the horror it can cause. At age 13, my father gave me my first shotgun (.410), and I still have it. In fact, I have lots of guns. Actually, I’m not…
It was probably because I watched too many “James Bond” movies when I was young, but I got struck by the wanderlust-bug and became determined to see the world. Wisely, my geography professor told me that travel takes a great deal of money and gives you very little knowledge in exchange . . . but you do gain far better perspective. He was right! Most…
Despite being a lifelong gun-lover who owns many guns, I side with my Democratic friends that “something” must be done to reduce gun violence. However, stopping the flow of new weapons into our population is not likely, due the NRA hostages in Congress. We need to reverse the flow and remove guns from the population. With a population of 335 million, we have almost 400…
There are many similarities and many differences between the Great Recession of 2008/9 and the current banking “crisis”. In no particular order, here are some initial thoughts: 1. Social Media: One cause of the current “crisis” is that it is the first downturn since social media overwhelmed America. I’ve seen many banks experience a “run-on-the-bank” and go under, but I have never seen banks collapse…
It’s a reasonable assumption that our Founding Fathers were good and decent people. I wonder how they would reply if we told them: “Your Second Amendment has become a smokescreen for bad people to hide behind, when killing good people. In fact, your Second Amendment has made it possible for guns to become the leading cause of death for children, surpassing car accidents. Are you…
Remember those dreaded “compare & contrast” questions in college? We should do that for the current banking crisis (BC) and the 2008/9 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Ready? Unemployment was much higher in the GFC. The stock market dropped by roughly 50% during the GFC. It took months for the GFC to develop but only days for the BC to develop. You can thank social media!…
In the 1980’s, the government encouraged lenders to get more aggressive in making loans, to stimulate the economy. That was especially true for Savings & Loan Associations, who were encouraged to “think like entrepreneurs”. Naturally, “anything worth doing is worth over-doing!” By 1990, there was a full-blown financial crisis. My chief memory was when the small bank on the first floor failed, and I could…
Today’s “jobs report” shows the economy is still quite strong, and that’s bad news! Expecting that 225 thousand new jobs were produced last month, we actually produced 311 thousand – GOOD NEWS! That makes the Fed more likely to raise interest rates significantly next week – BAD NEWS! The average hourly earnings dropped slightly, which indicates inflation may be subsiding. The size of our labor…
Probably as a result of growing up in a beach town, I enjoy watching tourists. During a recent cruise to Antarctica, the largest group of passengers, not surprisingly, was affluent over-60 whites. There was only one black couple. There were zero children, not even teenagers. Most passengers were fit enough to get into and out of Zodiacs (eight-passenger rubberized boats) and to walk along rocky…
As a longtime member of the National Association of Business Economics (NABE), I look forward to their quarterly surveys. It is important to know when my thoughts are in the economic mainstream . . . or not. Their just-released survey is interesting. I have never seen less agreement at NABE. Take your choice: continuing economic expansion, severe recession, or a modest recession or “soft-landing” —…
