Astrogirl

The new Medicare legislation actually provides a giant subsidy to Corporate America: “Some companies with many retired workers are expected to post big earnings gains for 2003 or 2004, thanks to accounting guidelines for subsidies under the federal prescription-drug program.” That gets right down to it. Of course there’s more:

…if an employer [...]

In this Barron’s article, Hugh Hendry briefly explains what happens when you print too much currency. He uses the classic example — John Law’s French fiat currency disaster.

He pulls no punches:

The response to the crash since March 2000 has been to create even more money. Just as it was 300 years ago. We’ve created [...]

From Steve Roach’s column today:

The Europeans and Japanese believe they have suffered enough and are pointing the finger at others — mainly China — to pick up the slack. US politicians are also sympathetic to this line of reasoning. Consequently, the role that China plays in venting global imbalances is also likely to be [...]

I can’t really figure out how the .3% lost from the Producer Price Index in November is supposed to be a good thing[1]. This number came out before the negative Consumer Confidence data which was credited with taking the market lower. In any case, they still don’t say much about what falling producer [...]

Today, Stephen Roach said something obvious that I haven’t heard put quite this way: Insecure and scared workers tend take out their fears and frustrations on incumbent politicians.

Indeed they do. So if these bunch of half-wits we call a world-class legislature want to get re-elected, and we know they do, they will pander. [...]

I found this in one of the financial pages that I read on a regular basis.

For some reason, many of the fastest-growing, fastest talking communications tech companies in the nation have installed themselves in the techland paradise between Washington DC and Dulles Airport. Making our way to the airport last night, [...]

MSN has caught me completely by surprise. Usually, while the WSJ and CNBC are blowing productivity and GDP sunshine up everyone’s ass, CBS Marketwatch remains the model of pragmatism among major financial news outlets. Today, MoneyCentral at MSN has run an article about how an analyst, one Michael Belkin, who has been right [...]

Today, I found the following two headlines on the WSJ Online’s front page. At one point, they were right next to each other, at the moment, they are separated by one other headline.

First:
Motorola reported third-quarter earnings that were essentially flat with a year ago, as average prices for its cellphones fell. The company released [...]

No, not the dismal confidence numbers released today. I’m referring to some numbers I found in the Daily Reckoning.

But, keeping up with the Joneses can get rather expensive. The average consumer household in the U.S., according CNNMoney, carries $8940 in overall credit-card debt, holds 16.7 cards and owes $1363 per card. Likewise, the [...]

Dr. Kurt Richebächer has a short article in the Daily Reckoning (already re-posted all over the place) explaining exactly how the government has been jiggering employment numbers. I think most people are aware that the numbers are a very poor representation of the jobs situation, but I haven’t seen a short essay explaining it [...]