Ten years after Ben Bernanke's famous 60 Minutes interview, the Fed is looking less likely than ever to unwind the unconventional monetary policies it used to fight the Financial Crisis. Danielle DiMartino-Booth writes for Bloomberg: If the primary goal was recovery without inflation, the Fed delivered. Since the onset of recovery in June 2009, the core personal consumption expenditures index, which measures the prices paid by consumers for goods and services net of food and energy prices that tend to be more volatile, has been above 2 percent in in just five months in 2018, four in 2012 and … [Read more...]
Connecticut Just Doesn’t Learn: Now Targets the Middle Class With New “Sin” Taxes
Now that Connecticut has raised taxes on the wealthy so high many of them are fleeing the state, Ned Lamont, the state's governor, and its legislature, are setting their sites on the middle class to fund state government. The state is overloaded with debt. After a borrowing binge, the state raised taxes, but it still can't pay its bills. So, rather than making the hard choices by cutting spending, the government is coming after middle class families with taxes on things like soda and electronic cigarettes. In the CT Mirror, Thomas Aiello, a policy and government affairs associate with … [Read more...]
Bianco: Devaluation to Fund Government Has Never Worked
Writing at Bloomberg, Jim Bianco explains to readers that devaluing a currency to fund government has never worked. The Modern Monetary Theory, a current hot topic among the Socialist-leaning politicians and activists in Washington D.C. today, is very much the devaluation of money to fund government. Bianco writes: MMT is basically a sibling of quantitative easing. While QE allowed the Fed to print money to buy securities such as U.S. Treasuries, mortgage bonds and bad loans, MMT proposes printing money to fund the government. The Fed has hailed QE as a success, bringing the economy back from … [Read more...]
Democrats Fight for the Wealthy with New Tax Bill
Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is pushing a bill with his House colleague Rep. Bill Pascrell (also from NJ), to eliminate the cap on deductions for state and local taxes. The cap has hit wealthy Americans in high tax states like New Jersey very hard. In 2010 Menendez called the GOP Senate negotiators terrorists for attempting to extend the entire Bush tax cut plan, now he's demanding tax breaks for many of the same people the Republicans were fighting for then. Naomi Jagoda of The Hill reports: Sen. Bob Menendez and Rep. Bill Pascrell, both New Jersey Democrats, introduced legislation last … [Read more...]
The Meat Industry is Growing Chickens so Fast They’re Not Edible
For decades chicken growers have been working to speed up the rate at which a chicken grows from chick to roaster size. To reach the target weight of 6.3 pounds today takes 47 days, as opposed to double that 50 years ago. But the acceleration in chicken growth hasn't come without its own problems. The Wall Street Journal's Jacob Bunge reports on what has become known as "spaghetti meat." He writes: Chicken companies spent decades breeding birds to grow rapidly and develop large breast muscles. Now the industry is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to deal with the consequences ranging … [Read more...]
$200 Billion in Foreign Currency Corporate Debt Makes Turkey’s Economy “Vulnerable”
Analysts are worried about the future of Turkey's economy. The country has suffered under doubt about its future during a rift with Washington D.C. over Turkey's proposed missile purchases from Russia. David Gauthier-Villars reports at The Wall Street Journal: The Turkish economy shrank at the end of 2018 and looks set to contract further this year, presenting a challenge for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of a critical electoral test for his ruling party and amid renewed diplomatic tensions with the U.S. Amid mounting popular discontent triggered by rising food prices and … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Life: The World Needs More Cowboys
Wyoming is the Cowboy State, and if you are looking for more adventure in retirement, it's a great place to go. Wyoming residents are blessed with a tax burden that is tied with South Dakota for second lowest in the nation (behind Alaska). With an overall state tax burden of only 7.1%, residents fleeing New York (12.7%), Connecticut (12.6%), New Jersey (12.2%) or California, Illinois and Wisconsin (all 11.0%), could see savings adding up to around 4%. That's as much as the recommended annual portfolio draw down for many retirees. Can you afford to leave that money with your city and state each … [Read more...]
Grantham on Stocks: You Can’t Get Blood Out of a Stone
In a recent interview with CNBC, famed investor Jeremy Grantham explained that despite new stimulus from the ECB, and a halt on tightening measures by the Fed, he isn't optimistic that a boom in stock prices is forthcoming. Mark Decambre reports at MarketWatch: Jeremy Grantham, an investor credited with predicting the 2000 and 2008 downturns, told CNBC on Thursday that investors should get inured to lackluster returns in the stock market for the next two decades, after a century of handsome gains. “In the last 100 years, we’re used to delivering perhaps 6%,” but the U.S. market will be … [Read more...]
Big Oil “changing the way that game gets played” in the Permian
Big oil companies like Exxon and Chevron came late to the party in the Permian basin, but are now heavily invested in the oil play. Faced with certain difficulties ahead, they are looking to "change the game." Ed Crooks reports for The Financial Times: The Permian’s oil output has already shown prodigious growth in recent years: it has doubled since the summer of 2016, to 4m barrels a day, or roughly a third of total US daily production. The announcements from Exxon and Chevron were a signal that the boom would continue. “It is quite a stunning development, in terms of the scale and the … [Read more...]
Europe Seems Bent on Taxing U.S. Ingenuity
France has just introduced a 3% tax on major tech companies. Those hit hardest will be Facebook, Google and Amazon. These American companies brought their ingenious products to Europe, gaining strong followings. Now, the overly indebted governments of Europe, led by France, are itching to get their hands on tech cash. This isn't the first attempt at taxing tech companies in Europe, and it won't be the last. Elizabeth Schulze reports for CNBC: An EU-backed effort to pass a 3 percent tax on the revenues of big internet companies failed last year amid concerns from countries including Ireland … [Read more...]
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