Do world stock markets believe Congress is just offering up some Halloween excitement? Last week, they responded to the government shutdown in the United States and the possibility the U.S. might default on its debt for the first time ever with the bravado of teenagers standing in line for a haunted house. Markets around the […]
For Sturm und Drang enthusiasts, the third quarter of 2013 held plenty of mayhem and emotion. It began with an overthrow of Egypt’s democratically-elected government and ended with the United States government at risk of defaulting on Treasury and government obligations. In between: Fed officials had a lot to say. Like background music that manipulates […]
“It’s déjà vu all over again,” Yogi Berra reportedly said as he watched Yankee teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris smack back-to-back home runs for the umpteenth time. Americans are experiencing déjà vu all over again, too. Sure, the prospect of another fiscal showdown doesn’t electrify a crowd like a couple of major league home […]
We’re going to do it…We’re going to do it…We’re not going to do it…Yet. Last week, the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee gave stock markets a gift that, on a scale of thrills, might have been on par with Marilyn Monroe singing happy birthday to JFK. On Wednesday, the FOMC announced (without a trace of […]
Baseball great Yogi Berra once said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” He may have been on to something. Last May, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke introduced the idea the Fed's economic stimulus program, known as Quantitative Easing (QE), might be ratcheted down sooner rather than later. The […]
Confluences are the building blocks of the world’s waterways. When two or more rivers meet, changes in velocity and turbulence tend to result in geologic scouring; erosive activity that may alter the shape of the river and its bed. The action may produce a ‘scour hole’ downstream from the confluence. For a river runner, a […]
Last week was crunch time in the National Football League (NFL). With the 2013 regular season approaching rapidly, NFL teams cut about 700 players from their rosters over the Labor Day weekend. That was a big cut—about a 40 percent drop in player employment—as rosters were pared from 90 to 53 players. However, it’s not […]
“So much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow / glazed with rain / water / beside the white /chickens.” Well, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s monetary policy is a lot more complex than the simple tools mentioned in the oft-memorized William Carlos Williams’ poem, The Red Wheelbarrow, but an awful lot is […]
Robert Burns, father of fourteen and writer of Auld Lang Syne, once said, “There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.” Was he ever right! Here are a few sure things: The Federal Reserve intends to reduce economic stimulus by tapering quantitative easing (QE). Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke plans to retire. Gross Domestic […]