Global Market Commentary, Analysis and Investments
Today, we revisit a recurring theme: the assault on enterprise. It was the subject of our symposium in Vancouver in July. In this episode, we look at a particularly vulnerable segment of the economy: small businesses.
To help set the stage, let’s look at some important stats from the Small Business Administration (SBA). Small businesses:
[Read more...]By now, everyone and their mother knows the US stock market is a losing bet. The big indexes went nowhere over the last decade, absolutely plummeted in the last few years and now even the 2009 snap-back rally is officially kaput.
Thus, a logical question: Is it time to start buying stocks again?
[Read more...]Today’s report begins with an abominable horror: The world’s most valuable commodity has soared to its highest price in a generation.
Markets make opinions, the old-timers say. Today, we have empirical proof. Or at least a litmus test on the “mood� out there.
Gone are the days of the stereotypical high-rolling cokehead on Wall Street, says the drug screening firm Sterling. After conducting tests at 270 firms over the past three years, positives for cocaine have dropped 60%…down to just 7% of all failed tests.
[Read more...]The insane have no idea that they are insane.
Pelosi presents a birthday cake to Social Security.
Seventy-five years ago, in the depths of a depression, with a stroke of a pen, President Roosevelt created programs that would morph into the biggest mandatory spending initiatives of the US federal government.
[Read more...]Our coffee doesn’t taste any different this morning. The sun still appeared on the horizon in the East. But today the world is different. Bean counters who care about these things say China has become the world’s second largest economy, effective: immediately.
If numbers from the Far East can be trusted, China produced $1.3 trillion of economic activity in the second quarter. Japan, the erstwhile #2 economy on the planet, produced a mere $1.2 trillion.
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Another Chinese Resource Grab
The stakes just got higher in the 3-D chess game China’s playing for natural resources. On one dimension, the Middle Kingdom is on the offensive. But on another, it’s playing strictly defense…
Beijing is ordering state-owned businesses to explore a bid for PotashCorp (POT), the Canadian fertilizer giant that’s already fending off a hostile bid from BHP Billiton, the Anglo-Australian mining giant.
[Read more...]