We have long argued that lower tax rates are crucially important for economic growth, and that lower rates can actually result in increased tax revenues. Moreover, because those who control most of the capital that is used for production (rather than consumption) will respond very quickly to changes in tax rates, cranking up tax rates on the profits...
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Christina Romer and the strong versus weak dollar debate
Here's a recent piece in the New York Times from Christina Romer, former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors to the Obama administration and since 1988 an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley (faculty profile here).Entitled "Needed: Plain Talk About the Dollar," the essay decries the longstanding talking points that...
Monday, May 23, 2011
People of Europe, Rise Up!
The markets are down sharply today over a downgrade to the outlook for Italy's credit rating, as well as over the rout of the socialists in elections in Spain over the weekend.Investors might wonder, Why would socialists getting voted out worry the bond market? Spanish voters apparently revolted against "austerity measures" that the socialist government...
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Bulls always win
With the ongoing high unemployment and signs of building inflationary pressures, the bears are starting to come out with predictions of economic catastrophe.There is a school of thought which argues that the entire recovery from the recession of 2008-2009 was a fabrication of the easy Fed policy and subsequent injection of additional easing through...
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The ugly tomatoes of protectionism
Today's Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor calls attention to a US Supreme Court decision rendered this day, May 10, 1893 in which tomatoes were upheld as a vegetable.What exactly this topic has to do with writers is a bit of a mystery, although the narration treated it as a quaint issue of semantics over whether something with seeds should be...
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Sector sloshing
As active professional investment managers (see track record and GIPS disclosures for Taylor Frigon Capital Management located here), we are sometimes asked why good managers ever experience any periods of relative underperformance?To put it another way, why do managers who outperform over longer periods frequently experience shorter periods in which...
