“So part of me is happy that the White House has bumped into reality and now admits that it hasn’t been able to come up with a workable plan for the employer mandate. But another part of me is unhappy. … Continue reading →
"A generation has come of age in a time of falling interest rates. When the last turn came, the boomers were just reaching maturity, setting up families, beginning their careers and starting to think about investing. From 1981 until last month, they knew nothing else. A world of falling interest rates is a gentle, forgiving world. But it is a strange world too... It is a world of make-believe, where people pretend they have income they don't really have. What happens when people have debt up the wazoo... and interest rates rise? What happens when the entire economy depends on unprecedented levels of debt at unsustainably low interest rates? That is what we are going to find out." Continue reading →
"You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Secretary Lew wasn’t the first Democrat to utilize tax havens. Lawmakers such as John Kerry, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and others on the left also have utilized tax havens to boost their own personal finances. And it appears that Mr. Lew won’t be the last Democrat to be caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Here’s some of what’s being reported by the New York Times with regards to the President’s nominee to be U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman." Continue reading →
"The Fourth of July weekend was an especially bloody time in Chicago this year, where 72 people were shot over the course of just four days according to local media. Of that 72, NBC Chicago reported that 12 men were killed. A 5-year-old boy and a 7-year-old boy were also seriously injured in separate events, as was a 72-year-old woman who was reportedly shot in the ankle. NBC Chicago noted that at least three individuals who took bullets over the weekend are refusing to cooperate with police. 4,265 were murdered in Chicago from 2003-2011, according to HBO’s Vice, whereas 4,422 American soldiers died of violence in Iraq over that same period." Continue reading →
"Rahm Emanuel, who released his tax returns for the first time as mayor Tuesday, reported earning more than $409,000 in 2012 from his city salary and income from investments. Emanuel reported his $204,726 salary as mayor and another $158,823 in dividend income from investments with JPMorgan Chase Bank and Golub Capital Partners VII LP, as well as $9,519 from his partnership in the Golub investment fund. The mayor reported paying $77,740 in federal taxes, or a rate of about 21 percent, on adjusted gross income of $373,478.[...]Some of Emanuel's investment income came from Golub entities with addresses in the Cayman Islands." Continue reading →
"Asset bubbles are inevitable when the pool of good investment opportunities is much smaller than the pool of credit-money sloshing around seeking a higher yield. It really is that simple. It's astonishingly easy to create hot money: just create the money in a central bank and then make it available to financiers, investment banks, global corporations and other Financial Elites at near-zero real rates of interest. It's considerably more difficult to create a good investment opportunity: an investment that is worthy of the risk must have a sound base in fundamentals such as cash flow, return on investment, etc." Continue reading →
"The majority of those foreclosed on and who sold short would have become clean potential buyers in 3 to 7 years ensuring a housing recovery was not only on deck but would be 'durable'. Millions of legacy HELOCs and HELOANs preventing folks from rebuying real estate indefinitely would have been exterminated making millions more potential buyers within 2 to 5 years. Bottom line, history will not be kind to loan mods and workouts. It will show that modifications, anti-foreclosure laws, banks protecting their HELOC assets — in general, unabated can-kicking — was responsible for housing to remain in a depression for years longer than it would have." Continue reading →
"One of the most widely accepted truisms in what passes for our financial media is that the dollar and gold are correlated: when the dollar weakens, gold rises, and when gold rises, the dollar declines. Nice, except this vaunted correlation isn't remotely visible in the charts. Conclusion: there is no correlation between gold and the U.S. dollar index. Not even close.The two move independently; any apparent correlation is semi-random signal noise. They are not on a simplistic see-saw." Continue reading →
"40,000 words have been changed as part of an effort to rid state statutes of gender-biased language. The bill, signed into law earlier in the year, went into effect this week. And it was no small task. 'Fisherman' is now a 'fisher.' 'Penmanship' is called 'handwriting.' And 'manhole cover' is, well, still 'manhole cover.' 'His' is now 'his and hers.' 'Clergyman' is now 'clergy.' 'Journeyman plumber' is now 'journey-level plumber.' Washington is the fourth state to officially remove gender-biased language from the law. Others are Florida, North Carolina and Illinois. Nine other states are considering similar gender-neutral laws." Continue reading →
"Two burglars spent last weekend repeatedly breaking into a Dallas law firm and stealing three computers while leaving other valuables behind. The attorneys said Sunday that this was no ordinary break-in: it may have been politically motivated. The law firm targeted is Schulman & Mathias, which represents State Department whistleblower Aurelia Fedenisn, formerly with the department’s office of inspector general. Fedenisn revealed to CBS News earlier this year that she’d seen internal investigations called off or misdirected by higher ups, drawing a rapid and terrifying response from law enforcement, with a specific focus on her family and children." Continue reading →