Macro matters
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Throughout 2009 we reported on the growing preparedness trend.
Prepper Mania: Retail Behemoth Costco Offers Survival Food Packages
Haven't we had one of these before? FOMC doesn't hint at QE3 so we trash everything as there will be no more free money? But no more free money because free money is not needed is not a reason to sell everything.
Macro Man
The Baseline Scenario
“I don’t see anything wrong with asking people to pay the expected value of their health care — a mandate to get insurance to cover the catastrophic things that society would cover in any case — to avoid this type of gaming of the system. Yes, it’s true that many healthy people will pay, remain healthy, and seem to get nothing. But that’s the wrong way to look at it. They have insurance whether they pay for it or not. Society will not let them die of a standard, treatable illness so insurance services are present.
Bronte Capital
My blog post suggesting that small-cap stocks were mostly to be avoided roused the animosity of many readers. The problem was that many of my readers see themselves as value investors. A surprising number run small funds and my post was an attack on their world view.
We released our February National Housing Report yesterday – “US Home Prices Already Climbing in February ,” in which we highlight the role of declining active market housing inventory in this year’s home price stabilization. Ironically, Jonathan Miller (author of Matrix Blog) wrote on Monday – “ The Decline In Inventory Right Now is NOT a Good Sign .” Jonathan and I disagree on this point, which we delightfully and civilly discussed via email this morning.
Altos Research: How's The Market?
ELA is the acronym for Emergency Lending Assistance. This is direct lending by the national central bank, with ECB authorization to local banks with more liberal collateral requirements. The national central bank is responsible/liable for the funds not the euro system. Last week when the ECB announced that four Greek banks were no longer able to borrow from the ECB, this forced them to borrow from the Greek national central bank’s ELA facility. This in turn created confusion and all sorts of imaginary thinking
Credit Writedowns | Finance, Economics and Markets
In "7 Reasons Why The Jobs Recovery Is Real This Time," the Associated Press details what I would consider to be the positive spin on a variety of economic and political developments [ highlighted in red italic for clarity ]. In the interest of fairness and balance, I thought it only right to annotate each of their bullet points with statistics, reports, and arguments that show things in a different light: During and right after the Great Recession, companies shrank their work forces because demand plunged and fewer workers were needed.
Financial Armageddon
Gold