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There was a time…not so very long ago…when Americans held all the top spots. We had the most…the best…the biggest companies. And the richest people.
Those days are gone…
MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim is the first man from a developing nation to become the world’s richest person – a shift that underlines the loosening of America and Europe’s stranglehold on the top spots in the billionaires’ club.
(more...)Yesterday’s big move in the Dow throws us back to our customary position – uncertainty, bordering on da-daism. The Dow rose 169 points yesterday. Gold shot up $29 to $1119.
“I think, therefore I am,” said Rene Descartes. How did he know he thought? And what if he thought he wasn’t? Would he not be? He should have tried following the stock market! It would have improved his philosophy. “I think I think,” he would have emended his famous quotation. “But maybe I don’t…”
(more...)No lobbyist left behind!
That’s the new motto of the whole Washington establishment. Every spending bill has something in it for everybody.
Today is a holiday in America. It’s “Presidents Day,” a day set aside for Americans to honor those who rule over them. Most Americans think of Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt…but here at The Daily Reckoning we honor America’s truly great presidents – William Henry Harrison, Chester Arthur and Warren Harding – those who didn’t make things worse.
(more...)We were snowed in Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. By Thursday, essential supplies were running short. All we had left was two cases of red wine. Would that be enough to last until Friday? We had our doubts…
Cabin fever had set in. In desperation, we read the paper. Big mistake. The papers in Washington take themselves seriously. They tell us about congressmen, senators, agency heads, lobbyists, crooks, perverts and other politicos. One man has held up a liquor store. Another has waylaid an entire nation. These are the people who could be called the “power elite.” They are at the head of our government…they are leading and directing our great empire. Which only makes us wonder about the whole thing. Maybe a country isn’t so great after all…but just an accident…one that happens in spite of the dumbbells running it? And maybe an empire comes about not because of the drive and vision of the imperialists, but of its internal momentum…and on its own schedule…no matter what the nincompoops think.
(more...)Well, the Greek story was big this week. ‘The Big Fat Greek Meltdown,’ as Justice Litle calls it. It pushed stocks and bonds down early in the week. By the end of the week it was pushing them up.
What happened in the meantime? Well, the euro-feds made it appear that they were going to do the same dumb things our own feds did. They said they were going to fix the situation. Just like the US fixed Fannie Mae and AIG!
(more...)Here’s a cartoon sent by one of our dear readers. We have readers all over the world. But Pamela must be one of the most remote. She lives on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific. We’ve seen the photos. It looks stunningly beautiful. A South Pacific paradise.
Of all the activities the US government undertakes, it’s the misleading ones that seem to occur most consistently. Revisions are always a good example, and one of the ugliest this week, well… at least tomorrow, will be the Friday jobs report. It’s expected to show a staggering 824,000 additional job losses between April and March of 2008, the largest such revision in nearly two decades.
(more...)Last week’s winner of the Mogambo Most Stupid Quote Of The Week (MMSQOTW) goes to that arch-idiot, Barack Obama – after the contest judge (me) was found (my wife tracked me down) in a local tavern (low-rent girlie bar), and was hurriedly sobered up (to no avail) with some hot coffee (too weak) and a lot of screaming from my wife (loud), mostly centered about what a lowlife bastard I am (with examples).
(more...)“It seems nothing can keep a bad market down,” we opined last week, adding, “If this bounce goes much higher, we’re going to have to review the laws of financial gravity.”
Just when we were on the verge of losing faith in those immutable laws…the market put them to the test for us, leaping off a cliff with barely a cocktail umbrella to slow its fall. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 4% during the past five trading days. The broader S&P 500 index faired even worse. That’s the thing about the laws of physics – they don’t require any faith. They are testable. They care not for wish thinking and make believe, dot.gov statistic padding. Central planners can fluff their partly fraudulent, wholly misleading GDP figures all they like…the truth always comes out in the end.
(more...)Does the stock market know something we don’t? Yesterday, investors bid up prices on the Dow stocks to a new high. The index rose 115 points.
According to theory, the markets know more than any single investor, analyst or economist. In theory, the markets know everything there is to know. In theory, the markets are always right.
(more...)Our inbox is so full of idiots, anyone snooping might think we operated a website ending in “.gov”…
Our faithful (and unfaithful) readers were busy over the weekend, nominating their choices for this year’s Daily Reckoning Financial Darwin Awards. It’s a tough field, to be sure, so we’re keeping the polls open for a couple more weeks. The contestants thus far are varied and plentiful…
(more...)The stock market fell 100 points on the Dow index on Friday. We hope Daily Reckoning readers are out of US stocks. Sooner or later this jig is going to be up. You don’t want to be heavily invested when it does.
Right now, the market is dilly-dallying. Investors are enjoying a picnic. Alas, they’ve spread their picnic blanket on the side of Vesuvius. It could blow up at any time.
(more...)