The Many Barriers to Gainful Employment The economic issue that will dominate the political discussion this year will be employment – whether that is a fair assessment of economic progress or not. This is an issue we have beaten to death in the last year and will doubtless continue to flog simply because the rate [...]
In general these are a little more predictable as most of the economic decisions that affect the world are “planned” to some degree or another (not the typical definition of a Black Swan event). It may change the direction of the economy if the US elects to hike interest rates or the Chinese decide to [...]
Fed Board Up to Full Strength? Given that there has been almost nothing that could be described as a fiscal plan coming from Congress, almost all that could be construed as stimulus has come from the Federal Reserve and for the past year the Fed has been shorthanded. There have been two vacancies on the [...]
This is the first in a series on the Black Swan phenomena. This term was coined to describe the kind of events that are unexpected -but not unanticipated. The last year was a year completely altered by these events. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan could not be described as unanticipated given the geological reality [...]
When Last We Left You Just as the kids were starting to search the sky for Santa the good people of Congress elected to avoid the Grinch label and passed the two month extension of the payroll tax cut along with the extension of unemployment payments. The move was classic political drama right to the [...]
It is ALL About Politics – Every Wretched Bit of It If ever there was a group of people living in splendid isolation from the world around them it has to be the men and women of Congress. For the last three years the most often cited complaint from the business community and from the [...]
The commentary by those who style themselves as the “99%” has taken on the classic posture of populism. This is a strand of political thought that has been part of the US since the founding of the nation and the spirited arguments against the power of the monarchy and those business interests that exploited their engagement [...]
Third quarter economic growth numbers sagged more than originally thought and the final revision has the economy growing by only 1.8%. This was only marginally better than the 1.3% in the second quarter and now there is some doubt regarding the optimistic assumption about the fourth quarter. It is all going to come down to [...]
We wish we could just send everyone into the end of the year with warm wishes and happy tidings for a prosperous New Year. But, it seems that there are global geopolitical forces that have a different strategy. Iran has suddenly issued a warning to global powers that it will conduct 10 days of naval [...]
Anyone who is a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce should take note of this attack, whatever information the Chamber has, Chinese hackers may now have as well. Last year a Chinese cyber attack scooped the e-mails of four USCOC employees for six weeks, and likely had access to the group’s systems for up [...]
