Lost in Transmission

Posted on June 19, 2015 by MN Gordon

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen offered several insights into what she wants you to believe she’s doing.  For starters, she wants you to think that, definitely maybe, she will raise rates soon.  But not too soon.  And certainly not now.

Apparently, the Fed believes the economy is strengthening.  Though it’s not strengthening quite enough to raise the federal funds rate from practically zero…where it has reclined for over six years.  That would take a willingness to deflate the stock market.

Naturally, the Fed doesn’t want to deflate the stock market.  They want to inflate it.  For everyone loves an inflating stock market.  The appearance of ballooning wealth makes one feel richer, smarter, better looking, and younger too.

Following the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, and the obligatory Fed statement, stocks immediately spiked.  The DOW jumped 180 points.  Yet the gusto quickly faded…and the DOW finished out the day just 31 points from where it started.  Then, yesterday, the animal spirits roared back to life; the DOW closed up 180 points. Continue reading →

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Going Boldly from Decent to Indecent

Posted on June 16, 2015 by MN Gordon

Zimbabwe officially retired the Zimbabwe dollar last Saturday.  This marked the end of a devastating monetary experiment that shattered the country and pushed all accrued wealth beyond its borders.  The country will be picking up the pieces of what little remains for several generations or more.

If you recall, the Zimbabwe government confiscated private farms from white landowners in the late 1990s.  From what we gather, the stated purpose of this was to correct the ‘injustices of colonialism’.  How this exactly would achieve these objectives is unclear.

But it had the effect of supplanting productive farmers with inexperienced farmers who didn’t know how to make the land work its magic.  First, food production fell by 45 percent.  Then the banking sector collapsed, and farmers were unable to obtain loans to support their failing farms.

By 2007 the unemployment rate had spiked to 80 percent.  Thus the Zimbabwe central bank resorted to the printing press…emitting a seemingly endless supply of paper currency. Continue reading →

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Riding the Waves

Posted on June 12, 2015 by MN Gordon

Something practically impossible happened on Tuesday.  It rained in Los Angeles in June.  Not a lot…less than a tenth of an inch.  But it was enough for us to discover we had a hole in the bottom of our shoe as we crossed John Fante Square.

Yet that wasn’t the only thing practically impossible to happen on Tuesday.  Bond and gold markets simultaneously projected inflation and deflation.  Yields on the 10-year Treasury note jumped to 2.41 percent, anticipating inflation.  Yet gold dropped 0.19 percent to 1,175 per ounce, anticipating deflation.

On Wednesday, things were still a little discombobulated.  Ten year Treasury yields eclipsed 2.47 percent, while gold held steady.  Then, yesterday, yields on the 10-year Treasury note pulled back to 2.38 percent.  Gold held at about $1,182 an ounce.  Crude oil bounced around $60 a barrel.

The stock market continues to yo-yo up and down.  The DOW has gone up and down, and down and up, all year.  But it has nothing to show for its troubles.  It’s currently about where it was when the year started. Continue reading →

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Hillary Clinton Duh? No Duh!

Posted on June 9, 2015 by MN Gordon

Hillary Clinton’s condescending utterances have received so much gratuitous applause from Liberals over the years that it is now fatiguing to muster dissent.  What the nagging shrew lacks in substance she compensates for with longevity…and a seemingly endless pool of financial backing.

No matter how much you think you’ve seen the last of her, she flares up like ringworm jock itch at the most inopportune times.  She just won’t go away.  How is it, that in the year 2015, we must endure another bout of Hillary?  It seems this has been going on forever.

Back in the year 1997, for example, we recall being greatly belabored by an intellectual Progressive’s reverences for Ms. Clinton.  The Great Thinker placed a great deal of importance on her dim intellect…that she would lead us into the Promised Land.

We don’t know whatever happened to this happy fellow.  Perhaps he’s still advancing the cause of democracy to better suit his existence at the expense of his friends and neighbors.  Regardless, Hillary’s still here.  We’ve learned to make the best of it. Continue reading →

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