Random Articles

• I Bet It’s Self-Fulfilling Back in May, Barry Ritholtz bet James Pethokoukis that we are in a recession. From my view and the numbers I’ve seen, the downturn is concentrated in the housing sector. A good thing. Unfortunately, housing is a huge percentage of our overall GDP and it completely collapsed. Reminds me of early 2001, when the tech sector
• Looking Up  “…the number of people in households that bring in more than $100,000 also rose from 12 percent to 24 percent. There was no increase in the percentage of people in households making less than $30,000. So the entire ‘decline’ of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder. For married couples, median
• I Think We Got All 4 Remember, a few months ago when crude oil was at it’s highest (Unleaded hit >$4 in my neighborhood) and natural gas was spiking as well? Considering both are falling (Unleaded is currently $1.85 in my neighborhood), both are sold in US Dollars on the world market, and the US Dollar is trading at it’s highest value
• Real Estate Agents and Dodo Birds Steven and Stephen, the dynamic duo behind Freaknomics have a bit on Real Estate Agents being added to the Endangered Species list in the New York Times. Nothing new to anyone with a little understanding of the real estate market and how the internet has dissolved both travel agents and stock brokers. The more conversations I
• China Restates Earnings  “…with the corrected China [Purchasing Power Parity] statistics, the whole question is moot. China is just not that big now and will not get that big any time soon.” - Albert Kiedel of the Carnegie Endowment Kiedel’s article put a number of things into perspective for me - namely why I hear ‘China, China, China’ everywhere