financial
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
Washington's Blog
Americans have an illogical love affair with their vehicles. There are 209 million licensed drivers in the U.S. and 260 million vehicles. The U.S. has a higher number of motor vehicles per capita than every country in the world at 845 per 1,000 people. Germany has 540; Japan has 593; Britain has 525; and China has 37. The population of the United States has risen from 203 million in 1970 to 311 million today, an increase of 108 million in 42 years. Over this same time frame, the number of motor vehicles on our crumbling highways has grown by 150 million.
Creative - Fiscal FactCheck | FactCheck.org
Summary Washington's spending has recently been higher as a percentage of the nation's economic output than at any time since World War II. But by the same measure, Washington's revenues are the lowest in more than 60 years. So does the U.S. have "a spending problem," as Republicans keep repeating in the current debate over how to reduce the nation's record deficits? Or is the problem that taxes are not high enough? Those questions frame a long-running partisan debate, and as usual we won't offer an opinion one way or the other.I love math (though it's debatable whether math loves me back, I suspect not) so it's a pleasure to read Cliff Pickover's newest creation, The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics . Don't let the title fool you - The Math Book is a thoroughly enjoyable "walk" through the history of mathematics with each milestone narrated by Pickover in a short and sweet fashion (and surprisingly, with very little equations) that even non-mathemagicians like myself can enjoy. If you've ever heard the terms Bessel functions, Transcendental numbers, and Riemann hypothesis, and want to know more, then this is the book for you. Cicadas are winged insects that evolved around 1.8 million years ago during the Pleistocene epoch, when glaciers advanced and retreated across North America.
The Math Book: Milestones in the History of Math – Neatorama
Is the Stock Market Cheap, or Expensive? -- Seeking Alpha
(Click to enlarge) Here's the latest update of my preferred market valuation method using the most recent Standard & Poor's "as reported" earnings and earnings estimates and the index monthly averages of daily closes through February 2010, with the latest numbers based on the current index price around 1165. A standard way to investigate market valuation is to study the historic Price-to-Earnings (P/E) ratio using reported earnings for the trailing twelve months (TTM). Proponents of this approach ignore forward estimates because they are often based on wishful thinking, erroneous assumptions, and analyst bias. The "price" part of the P/E calculation is available in real time on TV and the Internet.
1. For instance, the difference between yields on treasuries and those on single A-rated industrial bonds. A company must offer a higher return on their bonds because their credit is worse than the government's. 2. An example would be buying a Jan 50 call on ABC for $2, and writing a Jan 45 call on ABC for $5.
Credit Spread
No position in a company is more important than the CEO and, as a result, no job gets more scrutiny. Sadly, little of this analysis benefits CEOs as most of the discussions happen behind their backs. This post is a step in the opposite direction. By describing how Andreessen Horowitz evaluates CEOs, I am at the same time describing what I think the job of the CEO is.
How Andreessen Horowitz Evaluates CEOs
S&P 500 PE Ratio Chart - 10 Year Average
Price earnings ratio is based on average inflation-adjusted earnings from the previous 10 years, known as the Cyclically Adjusted PE Ratio (CAPE Ratio), Shiller PE Ratio, or PE 10 — FAQ . Data courtesy of Robert Shiller from his book, Irrational Exuberance .
Most Interesting Illusions.
Squares A & B are the same shades. This optical illusion was created by Edward H. Adelson , Professor of Vision Science at MIT. Winner of 2 gold & 1 silver award at the 2004 Clio awards, these ads used combined words to make images.
Investment Company Institute - Mutual Fund Money Flows
Encouraging adherence to high ethical standards by all industry participants; advancing the interests of funds, their shareholders, directors, and investment advisers; and promoting public understanding of mutual funds and other investment companies.To say that stocks are anything other than dangerously overpriced with a P/E of over 130 and a yield of 2.5% on unsustainable dividends is either farcical or fraudulent. For such a simple little metric, the P/E ratio is subjected to all kinds of perversions to deflate it to levels that can be passed off as reflecting value. At the very least, most bubbleheads try to make it less scary than its current level of 133 for the S&P 500. Do-it-yourself P/E and dividend analysis
The reality of S&P 500 earnings - The Sovereign Speculator
The Roots of the Financial Crisis: Who Is to Blame?
The top subprime lenders whose loans are largely blamed for triggering the global economic meltdown were owned or bankrolled by banks now collecting billions of dollars in bailout money — including several that have paid huge fines to settle predatory lending charges. These big institutions were not only unwitting victims of an unforeseen financial collapse, as they have sometimes portrayed themselves, but enablers that bankrolled the type of lending that has threatened the financial system. These are among the findings of a Center for Public Integrity analysis of government data on nearly 7.2 million “high-interest” or subprime loans made from 2005 through 2007, a period that marks the peak and collapse of the subprime boom.Dr. Housing Bubble Blog
The US housing market is one of the most heavily subsidized and controlled sectors of our economy. Where Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had an implicit guarantee for decades, until we took them over, the FHA insured loan segment of the market is fully backed by the government and consequently, the public. Increasingly high default rates with FHA loans is now problematic since this is one of the key financing tools used to keep the market afloat since the bubble popped.Shadow Government Statistics » Home 2
Some Biographical & Additional Background Information Walter J. "John" Williams was born in 1949.I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If there's anything good that has come out of the financial crisis it's the slew of high-quality graphics to help us understand what's going on. Some visualizations attempt to explain it all while others focus on affected business. Others concentrate on how we, as citizens are affected. Some show those who are responsible.