Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Amazon and Apple: The Myth of the Rational Market?

Can anybody explain this to me? AAPL AMZN Price/Earnings 15.15 302.68 That’s a 20:1 ratio. Yes, Amazon has a lower price to revenues ratio, by a 2:1 margin. AAPL AMZN Price/Sales 4.06 2.06 And presumably at some point Amazon can turn the prices-versus-market-share dial away from gaining market share/maximizing revenue and toward price and profits. […]

Standard silly rounding for polls, 4th grade style fail

Lifted from Angry Bear Robert Waldmann’s Stochastic Thoughts: All aggregators are doing funny things by rounding first then subtracting.  This is a comment on Singiser, but it could be on any aggregator.  In the Gallup Tracker likely voter subsample, Romney is up 1.2% (this link points to numbers which will change)  If one must round […]

It’s Happening. The pundits are now recognizing what HAPPENED last night.

Okay, thus far it’s just one major pundit, the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, whose column posted at 1:58 p.m. demolishes the media’s Conventional Wisdom of last night and this morning, which focused mainly on Romney’s two gaffes, and concluded that Obama had won but only barely.  Binders-full-of-women is irresistible fun, but ultimately unimportant; Romney just […]

The Binders That Bind

The most revealing moment last night came as Ann Romney walked toward her husband onstage at the end.  That expression on her face.  I thought she looked like a woman in a binder. It is, I suppose, poetic justice for Romney that an obviously misspoken phrase of that sort is the catch phrase from last […]

Did Romney speak blasphemously?

Of all the things being deconstructed regarding the debate last night, this is the one that stood out for me: QUESTION: The outsourcing of American jobs overseas has taken a toll on our economy. What plans do you have to put back and keep jobs here in the United States? Romney:…which will allow me as […]

Why Unwinding QE Won’t Matter

Ashwin Parameswaran nails it once again. If you want to understand how the modern financial/monetary system actually works, run don’t walk to read this post. His key insight: Just as the East India Company could access cash on the back of their government bond holdings in the 18th century, any pension fund, insurer or bank […]

The Unemployment Tax Dilemma

by Tom aka Rusty RustbeltThe Unemployment Tax DilemmaWhen the economy is doing well employers pay both state and federal (backup system) unemployment taxes. The rates tend to be reasonable and are levied only on a portion of wages. During recessions the employers who keep workers on are in effect penalized because all rates will likely […]