by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care: Big Business Reacts to Reform The National Business Group on Health ** has issued the results of a poll on the reaction of larger employers to PPACA (Obamacare or the Act). A few highlights: The group expects employer health care costs to increase by 9% in 2011. Employers […]

Hat tip to MV=PQ (Tim Schilling) for this cartoon: Options, Choice and Exchange This strip would seem to indicate that too many options can create problems when making choices.

Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser breaks down US import data by sector to argue the following (see entire article here): What is clear is that consumer goods do not vary that much; now, part of auto and auto parts is going to satisfy consumer demand as well, and here we do have some evidence in support […]

Hat tip Moxyvote for this note: Quote: On July 14, the SEC published the linking to the SEC asking for comments on proxy voting Concept Release on the US Proxy System. They occasionally issue these releases, maybe two or three times a year, when they’re considering substantial problems. They want your feedback. This time around, […]

Many are talking about the bond market being the latest bubble. But it looks more like the press is just seeing bubbles everywhere. To me a bubble happens when everyone starts believing something that probably is not true. For example in the 1990’s investors started thinking that the long term earnings growth of the S&P […]

The market reacted strongly to initial unemployment claims jumping from 488,000 to 500,000. But on a not seasonally adjusted basis claims actually fell from 424,504 to 4o1,856. In recent weeks the seasonally adjusted claims have been somewhat distorted because GM did not have its usual seasonal shutdown of plants this year. This was also reflected […]

Marshall Auerback is a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, and a market analyst and commentator.crossposted with New deal 2.0 The Myth of the “Credibility of Markets” It is time to distinguish between the truths and the myths propagated by Wall Street. A few days ago, I wrote a piece suggesting that President Obama’s attack […]

During the discussions about the Fannie Mae project I still regret having turned down, one of the topics was which security would be better for a portfolio (assuming their risk-adjusted prices provided the same value): a four-year-old MBS or a seven-year-old MBS? I noted that the four-year-old MBS provided more potential upside but came gradually […]

by Beverly Manncrossposted with Annarborist A Curious Choice for a Sunday New York Times Op-Ed According to Republican pollster Whit Ayres in an op-ed piece, “It’s Still the Year of the Outsider,” published Sunday in the New York Times, it will be extremely difficult for Democrats to use their “failed policies of the George W. […]