Politics and follow the market.
Archive for October, 2008
The Wall Street Journal, October 23, 2008
Posted in Summary on October 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2008
Posted in Uncategorized on October 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
California Housing Market
Remember that we earlier mentioned that California is a leading indicator for the national financial crisis. The number of home sales in California are up fivefold from this time last year while the sales dollar volume is up 65% in September versus the same month last year.
This is mostly on the back of [...]
The Wall Street Journal, October 21, 2008
Posted in Summary on October 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Nothing catch my eye in this issue.
The Wall Street Journal, October 18th-24th, 2008
Posted in Summary on October 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
This week’s theme is the Demise of Capitalism and specifically that the current sentiment of government and the electorate is toward constraining the private sector and limiting economic freedom. The Economist argues that for all its faults, capitalism is the best economic system man has yet invented.
Russia and Georgia
As written previously, Russia has withdrawn from [...]
The Economist, October 11th-17th, 2008
Posted in Summary on October 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
This week’s issue lays out a special report on the world economy: 1) region-by-region, 2) related to recent crisis. The details are in a prosaic style which defy summary to some degree, and some of it has been covered in recent issues in a different form.
Economy
“Confidence” is the name of the game. Too many people [...]
The Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2008
Posted in Summary on October 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Economy
The U.S. Dollar (and Japanese Yen) are unexpectedly strengthening, but we’ve read that already in The Economist and in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal.
Europeans, led by Mr. Sarkozy, are proposing a new global financial order to, “speak with one and the same voice, and we build together the capitalism of the future.” U.S. officials prefer the [...]
Health Care
Posted in Uncategorized on October 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Speaking as someone in the U.S., I’ve yet to hear of a health care plan from any political quarter which addresses the following three realities:
How many standards of care do we permit? One.
Will we deny life-saving drugs or procedures to someone dying on the hospital steps? No.
As medicine progresses, there is no limit to how [...]
The Wall Street Journal, October 18-19, 2008
Posted in Summary on October 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Voter Registration in Ohio
Accusations fly that Democrats are trying to steal the election and that Republicans are trying to suppress the vote. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected an attempt to scrutinize hundreds of thousands of newly-registered voters in Ohio, but Republicans are using it as a campaign issue.
Freddie Woodruff
A CIA Agent, Mr. Woodruff was [...]
The Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2008
Posted in Summary on October 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Economy
Lower world-wide demand for oil and falling prices is causing OPEC to consider a production cut. Secondly, because of the financial crisis and risk-adverse investors cashing out, hedge funds are being forced to unwind long positions on oil leading to the downward sprial in prices.
Inflation is falling which leaves the Fed room to cut interest [...]
The Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2008
Posted in Summary on October 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Thailand
Recently, it has become fashionable in Thailand to charge others (particularly your political opponents) with “insulting the monarchy” — a 100-year-old law carrying a 15-year prison penalty. The 80-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej doesn’t support the law, but is nevertheless seen as almost divine by Thais. It has been called the “Ultimate Weapon”.
Flow of Deposits
Bank customers [...]
