Today marks the anniversary of the birth of Milton Friedman, born on July 31, 1912.Dr. Friedman was one of the clearest voices for freedom in the twentieth century, and in fact of all time.Among his many accomplishments was his articulation, along with Anna Schwartz, of the principles of monetarism, in the revolutionary Monetary History of the United...
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The Bandwidth Revolution
Over a year ago, we linked to an article entitled "Unleashing the 'Exaflood'" by Bret Swanson and George Gilder, which discussed the ramifications of the probability that internet traffic will likely surge one hundred fold by 2015.According to data presented in that article, the volume of data sent over the Internet in the year 2006 amounted to about...
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The Fed's oversteering and the wreckage of the past decade
With a strong rally today, the general stock market roared back . . . to a level it originally reached twelve years ago.Meanwhile, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in testimony before Congress earlier this week and in a Wall Street Journal article he published on Tuesday declared "accommodative policies will likely be warranted for an extended period."As...
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Investment Climate: July, 2009.
We recently published "The Investment Climate: July, 2009" in the commentary section of our website.In it, we summarize the current situation and provide some perspective on where we stand today.Subscribe (no cost) to receive new posts from the Taylor Frigon Advisor via email -- click her...
Monday, July 20, 2009
Apollo 11
Today is the fortieth anniversary of the magnificent achievement of landing a man on the moon, on July 20, 1969.There are many important and weighty lessons that we can ponder as we look back at that historic day.One that is certainly appropriate is to remember that during the 1960s, the space program was very much seen by the entire world as a contest...
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The healthcare black hole
Today, the Cato Institute published an article by Michael Cannon entitled, "Let Customers Control the Money and Market Will Cure Health Care." We believe he is right on track, and in very good company.In 2001, the late Milton Friedman wrote an exceptionally clear explication of the economics behind the problems with health care in the United States.In...
Monday, July 13, 2009
Seeing beyond a huge false dichotomy
This little exchange (see video above) between Professor Jeremy Siegel of Princeton's Wharton School and Barry Ritholtz of Fusion IQ brings out an important misconception that plagues many investors and which, unfortunately, was not directly addressed by any of the participants in the conversation during the discussion.In the video, host Larry Kudlow...
Friday, July 10, 2009
Air Vulgaria
National Public Radio recently weighed in on the economics of government health care with a metaphor that was so widely panned by listeners the producers ended up trying to apologize for it.In a piece called "What does 'public plan' mean in health debate," NPR postulated that "President Obama wants all Americans to get to 'Healthyville'" and that...
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Dangerous media distractions
Typical of some of the recent "sky is falling" economic angst roiling the markets lately is this recent opinion piece by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (pictured above).Since the disappointing June jobs report issued Thursday, those who were certain we are in a repeat of the Great Depression and those who are certain we need more government...
Friday, July 03, 2009
What Benjamin Franklin can teach us about free enterprise
Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, and a brilliant inventor, author, businessman, and statesman.Among his many inventions were bifocal lenses for glasses, the lightning rod for houses, and the concept of the public library. He discovered and articulated the principal of "conservation of charge" in electricity,...
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Free enterprise vs free markets
The Fourth of July is all about political and economic freedom and inalienable individual human rights, and in honor of those themes we'd like to discuss the important distinction between "free markets" and "free enterprise."Although it may not be a distinction drawn by economists, we like to make a distinction between the terms "free markets" and...
