Salient to Investors: Warren Buffett said: Increase taxes on those earning more than $500,000, and minimum rates of at least 30 percent on all income above $1 million. The rich won’t strike or stuff mattresses if tax rates are increased. Eliminate carried interest et al that enable income from labor to be converted into capital gains
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Simon Johnson at MIT Sloan School of Mgmt writes: William Dudley at FRB New York made it clear that 1) too big to fail remains with us. 2) The completed first round of living wills – potential liquidation plans by major financial institutions – has been unsatisfactory and 3) The legal mechanisms for an FDIC-managed
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: InsideClimateNews.org writes: In Phoenix, swimming pools outnumber solar panels by a thousand to one. Germany, with half the sunlight of Arizona, has four times as much solar power installed per capita. and 23 times more than the US. The primary reason for the renewable energy gulf between the US and Germany
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Stephanie Schmitt-Grohe and Martin Uribe at the National Bureau of Economic Research said the solution to an economic slump is higher interest rates when the cause of that slump is a confidence shock that cheap borrowing costs are failing to reverse, and ultra-easy monetary policy risks making fears of deflation a self-fulfilling
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Economic Outlook said Sandy reconstruction and related purchases and hiring may increase US economic growth by 0.5 percentage point in 2013. Bernard Baumohl at Economic Outlook said construction costs will be more than replacement because much of the work will involve fortifying structures. Goldman Sachs said Sandy may reduce economic growth by
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jack Ablin at BMO Harris Private Bank said the outperformance of 3 upscale retailers versus 3 lower scale retailers indicates investors believe high-income households will fund their higher tax burden from savings, rather than by cutting spending. Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-23/u-s-stock-futures-rise-s-p-500-may-extend-weekly-jump.html
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Caroline Baum writes: Nominal GDP is a good proxy for the Fed’s dual mandate, encompassing both real output and inflation. All the coaxing in the world hasn’t convinced the business community, focused on fiscal policy, that now is a good time to invest and hire. Read the full article at
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Amity Shlaes at the Bush Institute writes: 2013 may see a market drop similar to the 1937 one after the re-election of FDR in 1936, when industrial production plummeted by 34.5 percent and the Dow dropped by half. Parallels include: A pre-election spree that breached norms and set records. Budget-cutting
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Tim Worstall at the Adam Smith Institute writes: Jeremy Grantham is horribly mistaken when he talks about drastically reducing the use of phosphorus and potassium in the next 20–40 years else they run out and we begin to starve. Grantham is looking at mine reserves as if
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Peter Orszag at Citigroup writes: A growing body of academic studies warns that economic growth in China might slow substantially in the decades to come. Past growth has been driven disproportionately by workers moving from farms to factories, but those economic gains are over – the Lewis turning
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