The big news of the market today is Ben Bernanke. He is speaking this morning at 10 AM at a conference for central bankers in Jackson Hole. The general outlines of what Bernanke will say probably won’t be a surprise. He will probably overview the Fed’s efforts to boost the economy so far. He will say the economy is recovering. And he …
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke needs your help. Bernanke is looking for a word that means longer than extended to tell people how long he plans to keep interest rates low. And what he is looking for is a word that means a really, really long time–really, really. Superextended. Overextended. Superduper-extended.
So this is what the economic …
What should be the top tax rate for America’s wealthiest citizens? I recently wrote a post arguing why we should think about raising tax rates for the super wealthy. This evoked a range of responses from commenters. tnnumbers wrote:
As others have mentioned, the wealthy no longer limit their investments to America, so even taking into
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No more need to wait for the double dip in housing. It appears to be here. Earlier today, the National Association of Realtors announced housing market figures for July and the numbers were not nice indeed. Sales of existing homes fell 27% in July from the month before. July was the slowest pace for single family house sales since May of …
Another day, another loser in the market. At least that’s how it feels. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 265 points, and now stands at just under 10,400. Yesterday, the Federal Reserve said that it plans to buy more Treasury Bonds in an effort to continue to stimulate the economy. And if the economy needs stimulating then …
The super-rich are very different than you and me, except that is when it comes to tax rates. Couples making $137,000 pay 25% of their income in federal taxes. But someone making 10 times that or $1.5 million a year, or for that matter $100 million, will pay 35%. Factor in the carried-interest break that some Wall Streeters still get, …
Want to stimulate the economy and lower the foreclosure rate without adding a dime to the federal deficit. Not possible you say. Not so, says Morgan Stanley. Economists at the Wall Street firm are promoting what they are calling the Slam Dunk Stimulus plan, which they say could add $46 billion a year to the economy. The plan is getting …
Here’s another data point that gold and other things that are supposed to trade up when inflation spikes are in a bubble: The prices of books about hyperinflation are themselves hyperinflated (from Fortune):
Jens O. Parsson’s out of print economic treatise, Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations, is selling
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The New York Times, it seems, can’t make up its mind on l’affaire Goldman and AIG. In the past week the Grey Lady has had dueling articles on whether Goldman would have or wouldn’t have lost billions if the giant insurer had failed back at the height of the financial crisis. On Saturday, Gretchen Morgenson wrote that newly released …
Time to say Goodbye to the Pay Czar
Nearly a year and a half ago, Kenneth Feinberg was appointed to overseeing the pay of Wall Street executives and top officials of other companies that had to be bailed out in the financial crisis. Today is most likely his final day on the job of any consequence.
This morning Feinberg released the …
You would expect a very basic rule of the stock market to be that earnings are good. Yet this morning after two of the biggest banks in the nation Citigroup and Bank of America reported nearly $6 billion in earnings, not only did the shares of those two companies drop, but so did the whole market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was …
Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research Center has a study out this month about the cost of 401(k) plans, and they have found another flaw in the nation’s defacto retirement savings system: It is overpriced. So not only do 401(k) plans not meet the needs of the average American, they aren’t cost effective either. I wrote about …
