Last week we published a discussion of the S&P's lowered outlook for the ability of the US to sustain a AAA credit rating. We noted that the silver lining to the debate over the creditworthiness of the US is the fact that at least we are having the debate. Perhaps the fact that this problem has become front-page news is a good sign. The dark...
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The silver lining to the S&P change in outlook
As most investors know already, the credit rating arm of Standard & Poor's yesterday lowered the outlook on the credit rating of the US to "negative" from "stable," saying:Because the U.S. has, relative to its 'AAA' peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is...
Monday, April 18, 2011
Sad state of affairs in sell-side research
Hat tip to Steve Waite of Research 2.0 for bringing this story to our attention:Integrity Research Associates recently commented on an unpublished study from the IBM Institute for Business Value which concluded that the asset management industry is "paid too much for the value it delivers." Among other factors, sell-side research and excessive trading...
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
The unstoppable wave prepares to hit your television
This strikes us as a noteworthy video from technology commentator and author Robert Scoble, who writes the well-known Scobleizer blog.Video over the internet is bigger-than-huge, as we have been saying for some time (see for example "The Unstoppable Wave" series here, here, here, and here). It is already an extremely big deal and growing like crazy...
Thursday, April 07, 2011
In defense of the politicians
In the past year, budget crises have forced the issue of entitlement spending into the spotlight in Greece, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.The general reaction to any suggestion of cutting government welfare programs has been howls of protest. Even in the face of the eventual collapse of such programs if they continue on their...
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
A new-found bonanza of natural gas
Mississippi-based investment manager Ashby Foote has an excellent article entitled "US has gas bonanza" in which he notes that the US Energy Information Agency (part of the Department of Energy) continues to increase their estimates of the natural gas reserves present in the US."America, like Jed Clampett of old, finds itself sitting on a new-found...
Monday, April 04, 2011
Noteworthy interview: Dr. Joyce Appleby
Reason TV's Ted Balaker recently conducted a noteworthy interview with historian and UCLA Professor Emerita Dr. Joyce Appleby.In it, she discusses the fact that capitalism cannot help but create economic progress, which is an observation first made by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter (see here and here).She also contrasts this forward-moving...
