High Yield Dividend Stocks: What Every Investor Should Look For

Posted on February 15, 2013 by MN Gordon

High Yield Dividend Stocks: What Every Investor Should Look For
By Dennis Miller, Editor, Money Forever

It can be mighty hard to earn any interest at all in today’s banking environment.  Many in­vestors are looking to riskier investments to find the kind of returns they once got from an FDIC-insured CD or even a savings account.

But don’t despair.  There are still a few decent ways to make your cash earn some income without putting it at too great a risk.

My wife takes care of our filing, and during one of her filing sprees some time ago she walked into my office with the brokerage statement for her IRA and asked me why the interest was less than $1.  “Interest rates have gone down that much,” I said.

She replied, “That’s terrible,” and turned around, went back into her office, and stuffed the statement into the appropriate file.

Inflation was eating away at our savings, and our broker had nearly stopped paying any interest at all. Continue reading →

Posted in Dennis Miller, Stock Market | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Great Money Caper

Posted on February 12, 2013 by MN Gordon

Several weeks ago we alerted you to the burgeoning currency wars and the new age of desperation.  If you recall, nations, in unison, are attempting to export their way to prosperity by killing their currencies.  Unfortunately, if everyone’s doing it, the competitive advantage of cheap exports quickly disappears.

Still, it appears the world is heading down this path of insanity.  In fact, last week brought forth new evidence that nations are preparing for the ultimate race to the bottom…

“Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, has used the phrase “regime change” to describe his hopes for a new mindset at the Bank of Japan (BoJ),” explains The Economist.  “His wish may be granted sooner than expected.  On February 5th Masaaki Shirakawa, the bank’s governor, announced his decision to step down almost three weeks early, on March 19th.”

Abe wants aggressive monetary easing (i.e. money printing) and a weak yen.  He believes his economic policies, which are being called “Abenomics”, will boost exports and pull Japan’s economy out of a two decade slump.  Will it work? Continue reading →

Posted in MN Gordon, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Conscious Capitalism and Willing Participants

Posted on February 8, 2013 by MN Gordon

Last week, a joint article from Alternet and GlobalPossibilities.org, accused Whole Foods Market of “screwing workers.”  How so?

According to the grumblers, Whole Foods Market screws workers because it is anti-union.  They even cite a pamphlet titled “Beyond Unions” that the company gives to its employees to prove it.  Somehow this is unacceptable.  Naturally, it never occurred to the lunkheads that paying dues to a union chief may not be in the best interest of workers.

“Whole Foods isn’t anti-union,” said Whole Foods Market co-CEO, John Mackey, in response to the criticism.  “Our team members are not being prevented from joining unions, they’ve chosen not to… Why would they want to join a union?  Whole Foods has been one of [FORTUNE’S] 100 best companies to work for, for the last 16 years.  We’re not so much anti-union as beyond unions.”

Over the 27 years Whole Foods Market has been in business, Mackey has developed a unique business philosophy. Continue reading →

Posted in Economy, MN Gordon | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Scraps of Paper Be Damned

Posted on February 5, 2013 by MN Gordon

Today we begin with several data points…

First, if you hadn’t noticed, gold and silver bullion coins are selling faster than boysenberry funnel cakes at the county fair.  January 2013 U.S. Mint bullion sales of the American Eagle 1-ounce gold coin increased 47 percent from January 2012.  In addition, American Silver Eagle (1-oz) bullion coins sold by the U.S. Mint rose 22 percent in January 2013 from January 2012.

Second, Olin Corporation, the biggest retail supplier of small-caliber ammunition, enjoyed a jump in pretax earnings at its Winchester unit to $16.5 million during the fourth quarter from $500,000 the year before.  By our rough calculation that’s an increase in pretax earnings of 3,300 percent.

Third, the S&P 500 just notched its best January in 16 years.  For the month, it increased 4.84 percent.  What’s more, about $32 billion flowed into stock based mutual funds.

Here at the Economic Prism we don’t know what record gold and silver coin sales, gun and ammunition sales, and stock market sales have to do with one another. Continue reading →

Posted in Inflation, MN Gordon | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment