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

The mayors report in on Income Inequality (and miss the conclusion).

(lightly edited for ease of reading) Yesterday the Conference of Mayors and the Council on Metro Economies and the New American City released a report prepared by IHS Global Insight that is a repeat and thus update of a similar study performed after the 2001 – 2002 recession.  Income and Wage Gaps Across the US. I […]

Oh no, Walmart is not doing well? Danger, danger Economy Sucks! Not according to the flower shop.

Before this last recession, readers of a long time here might recall that I used my flower shop as a barometer for the economy.  I noted that things were not doing well as our sales had started to decline in August of 2006.    The smart boys and girls called it December 2008 as starting December […]

If I were writing that piece

Here is an interesting way to deal numbers, with the complete post to be read from the link: Obama taxes us into recession  (Mish’s musings) Withheld income and employment taxes have been running about 8.3% higher year over year, comparing the same 33 business days between Tuesday, January 8 and Monday, February 25.…Regardless, there is […]

Interview of Mr. John Reed regarding banking fixing the game

In case you are not aware, Bill Moyers is back and he doing his best work to date concentrating on our the changing of the rules regarding the economy. This episode where he interviews John Reed, former Citi Bank CEO and current MIT chair is most telling as it relates to the issue of why […]

EA Spreads: Why Should the Trend Change?

By Rebecca Wilder  EA Spreads: Why Should the Trend Change? They changed the title; but originally the NY Times reported “Euro Zone Agrees to Reinforce Maastricht Rules“.  That’s exactly what EA policy makers agreed to last week – not much to bring home. The real shift in policy came from the ECB. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard highlights […]

A little OWS, a little 99%, a little history

So today I read at the Yahoo Finance (it’s my home page because I can look at the stock numbers on the left and read the headline on the right for a guaranteed laugh) that  John Mauldin thinks the OWS would be better off if they occupiedCongress: Mauldin believes America still has time to figure […]

This is the reality of a real small business

By Daniel Becker This is a bit of an interlude in my writing regarding the income tax of yore. Though, this does involve taxation. This is also a continuation in my postings regarding real world small business experiences. Yes, you are going to get to read about a real situation that involves a real small […]

US economy in August: moving sideways

With the (roughly) 11% decline in US equities year-to-date, talk of a US recession has resurfaced. Through mid August, the high frequency economic indicators point to further weakness, rather than a double dip. In my view, whether or not the US is IN a recession – defined as the coincident variables followed by the NBER […]