Salient to Investors: Goldman Sachs study says: Bond investors do not perceive the 6 biggest US banks as too big to fail, including itself. The 6 banks have had an average funding-cost advantage over smaller competitors of 0.31 percent since 1999 – widest in the financial crisis and now an average 0.10
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Cash and marketable securities are at a record $1.73 trillion, while capital spending in the most recent quarter rose by the least since March 2010. Nick Raich at Earnings Scout said public outcry will erupt if companies do not spend and create jobs. Economists and money managers
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Cass R. Sunstein at Harvard writes: The sheer number of executive-branch decisions increases substantially over time, increasing the likelihood that at least one of those decisions will turn out to be incorrect, inappropriate or worse. As time passes, the incumbent President becomes more likely than his predecessor to be held responsible
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: More than half of the 20 municipalities with the fastest-growing populations between 2010 and 2012 were suburbs, meaning growing suburban communities will continue to get their share of the $400 billion in funds the federal government annually spends based on population data provided by the Census Bureau. Author James
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The loss of water rights to heavy industry, the worst drought in four decades and the rise in debt that follows is causing farmers to take their own lives – more than 2,200 farmers in India committed suicide in the past 4 years. Mandar Sathe at Prayas said a
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: 11 percent of student loans were seriously delinquent – a record – in Q3 2012 versus 6 percent in Q1 2003. Almost 30 percent of 20 to 24-year-olds are not employed or in school. Jack Buckley at the National Center for Education Statistics said a college diploma
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Dean Maki at Barclays said the housing recovery is intact and on a solid foundation. Lawrence Yun at NAR said the double-digit median price increase is unhealthy because incomes are rising at less than 2 percent – the only way to moderate price increases is more supply, which is 14
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Margie Patel at Wells Capital Mgmt says the market will rise over the balance of the year because the fundamentals are so good – any correction will be mild and either now or in the summer. Charles Evans at FRB of Chicago sees self-sustaining growth at escape
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Fareed Zakaria said: The fundamental rule of international relations is that as a country becomes powerful, others gang up to bring it down – viz the Habsburg Empire to Napoleonic France to Germany to the Soviet Union. The one great exception in modern history is the US,
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Scott Sumner at Bentley University writes: Europe is in recession because the ECB unknowingly wants a recession. By trying to hold the highly flawed CPI including oil and VAT well below 2% will inevitably produce the anemic NGDP growth that will inevitably produce recession. The wacky UK-style
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