Economy Discussions

Professor William Domhoff has updated his excellent study of wealth distribution in America and the results are just as sickening than they were in 2005! We looked at the uneven distribution of incomes when I wrote "The Crisis of Middle-Class America" earlier this month and I’ll re-post the main chart here as it&rsq...

Gee, you mean that really is a government function and the FOIA really does apply? Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. appeals court refused to reconsider a ruling that requires the Federal Reserve Board to disclose documents identifying financial firms that might have failed without the largest U.S. government bailout. Of course you...

How do you know someone is a left-wing whackjob? All you have to do is catch them lying about the "full faith and credit" of Social Security and Medicare, which they (of course) use as an excuse to avoid fiscal reality. Well, almost solved because, according to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (oh that th...

Jason: The following clip from CNBC and highlights organized from ZeroHedge (kudos) does nice work of discussing front-running in the form of High Frequency Traders (HFT). To have retail investor faith restored, Jim McCaughan of Principle Capital suggests major financial reform will be necessary. Jim is as blunt as I have heard on C...

I was privileged to attend a meeting at the Treasury Department in Washington on Monday afternoon, August 16. The two hour plus meeting was hosted by Senior Treasury Officials. There were three discussion leaders: Michael Barr, Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, led the first 45 minutes; Matthew Kabaker, Deputy Assi...

The week we received three sets of economic releases on manufacturing – and on the surface one was great (the Fed's Industrial Production for July 2010), one was good (The New York Fed's Empire State Manufacturer's Survey for August 2010) and one was bad (Philly Fed Business Survey for August 2010). Surveys do n...

Failure Friday Dead Bank Pool Results for Friday August 20, 2010. Eight (8) bank failures! Sonoma Valley Bank Sonoma CA Los Padres Bank Solvang CA Butte Community Bank Chico CA Pacific State Bank Stockton CA ShoreBank Chicago IL Imperial Savings and Loan Association Martinsville VA Independent National Bank Ocala FL Co...

This week cannot end soon enough for the bulls. While it’s no shocker that we are finishing the week where we started and, in fact, finishing the options expiration period where we started last month (July 16th), it’s still very disappointing that we are making no progress. Last weekend I asked if it was "Time for ...