Mozilla: The Scarlet Letter of Silicon Valley
It should be clear from the recent resignation of Mozilla co-founder, Brendan Eich, that the debate over same-sex marriage will not not end at the altar, but will proceed to the boardroom and beyond. After being named CEO last month, Eich was forced to step down by Mozilla’s board of directors when it was disclosed that, back in 2008, Eich had More...
Is the Ten Year Going to 3%?
These two articles point in a bad direction: China’s 2011 total trade surplus was $183B. The surplus with the USA was $270B; the US was 150% of China’s total surplus. China imports lots of “stuff.” More...
On Politics, Social Security and Spine
Assuming that no white knight (aka NJ Gov. Christie) enters the scene for the Republicans, this fall will be a race between Mitt & “O”. I’ve listened to them discuss their views on a hot button of mine, More...
Sins Of The Past
Ben Bernanke has said many times that Marriner Eccles, the head of the Federal Reserve in 1936/37 made a mistake by tightening credit (raising reserve requirements). Bernanke blames Eccles’s actions for the 50% More...
DOJ’s Latest Beat Down: Swiss Banks
Wow! The Department of Justice took an extraordinary step yesterday. It indicted Swiss private bank, Bank Wegelin, for aiding and abetting in US income tax fraud. This is a big deal. I’ll More...
Entering the Intervention Zone
One Around Two We are near the edge on a few situations in the FX markets. I’m watching the EURCHF and the USDYEN. The market traded EURCHF to a low of 1.2032 Wednesday. It closed at a (slightly) safer 1.2044. More...
Obama Bluffs on Refi?
In his State of the Union speech, the President said: Millions of innocent Americans have seen their home values decline. And while government can’t fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn’t More...
Bernanke Goes All In
Well, we got an inflation target from the Fed. Basically, thinking at the Fed has been eliminated. The process has been automated. Bernanke has convinced the Fed board to adopt Core PCE as a determinate of monetary More...
Tyler Durden and Paul Krugman Agree! – The EU is Toast!
A rare occurrence in journalism happened today. Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge is in agreement with – hold on – Paul Krugman of the NY Times. Both writers point readers to the FAQs from S&P on the downgrades More...
Social Security – January 2012 and Beyond
The January 2012 numbers for Social Security (SS) show a mixed picture. The results mirror what is going on in the economy. There is clear evidence that revenues at SS are recovering; there is equally clear evidence More...
