In theory, the US government could do the same. But, in fact, it never runs significant surpluses. There are too many people who want too much bread and too many circuses. And you don’t win votes by denying the voters…
September 30th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 2 comments | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "deficit"
For the GSEs the Rest Has Been History
Even though the GSEs enjoyed lower borrowing costs than other corporate borrowers because of their implied U.S. government guarantee, he said, they would face higher borrowing costs if interest rates spiked. If that were to happen, the GSEs would likely be unable to grow their balance sheets or earnings.
May 14th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 1 comment | Continued
Progressive Taxation Was Never About Fairness
In today’s Daily Reckoning we take a merciless meat axe to the idea that progressive taxation has anything to do with fairness. Quite the contrary. There could be nothing more unfair than stealing from one man and giving to another based on his “ability to pay.”
May 13th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 18 comments | Continued
Were the Government’s Stress Tests a Bogus Exercise in Deception?
Here we go again. Australia’s Federal budget-revealing glorious new deficit, is coming is coming next week. But this week will be all about tomorrow’s Reserve Bank meeting and today’s house price data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
May 4th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 0 comments | Continued
Geithner and His Toxic Asset Bailout Plan
Here we go again. Maybe this will be the week that historians look back on and say, “That’s when it all started to get better. Geithner came out with his toxic asset bailout plan. China stimulated. Stock markets bottomed. The crisis ended and the world got better and better forever and ever.”
March 23rd, 2009 | Dan Denning | 5 comments | Continued
A CAP to Replace the TARP
The share market is digesting the ambitious speech Barrack Obama gave to the U.S. Congress. He’s going to cut the U.S deficit in half, increase spending, provide universal health care, improve education, replace oil with alternative energy, introduce a carbon cap and trading scheme…and that’s just before lunch! You have to wonder what kind of Kool Aid the folks in Washington are drinking…
February 26th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 0 comments | Continued
Obama’s Bailout: Too Little, Too Late?
The combination of falling earnings and falling P/Es does to stock prices approximately what the Romans did to Carthage in the third Punic War. That’s why we have our Crash Alert flag flying. Stock prices delenda est. Typically, depressions come with bear markets. And bear markets come with bounces and rallies. We expected an O! Bama! bounce after the election. We got one…but much less than we expected. Stocks only rallied about 15%…
February 19th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
China is Considering Ways to Diversify Out of the Dollar
Reports in the press this week say that China is considering ways to diversify out of the dollar. The Chinese are no fools. They see what is coming. And they know what it will do to them – the holders of the largest pile of dollars ever assembled. The Financial Times made it perfectly clear to them in a cartoon yesterday. It shows Barack Obama in front of a huge smoking trashcan filled with dollars. The president is pouring on gasoline…
February 16th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 7 comments | Continued
The Good War
When it comes to war and adultery, make-believe may be better than the real thing. Certainly, it is safer. In the War on Terror, the enemy had no tanks…no aircraft…no ships…no armies…no celebrated strategists…no famous generals…no sophisticated weapons…no military culture…no leather trench coats…no burnished helmets…no battle cries… The problem was, it was hard to find the enemy at all. Bill Bonner explores…
February 2nd, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 6 comments | Continued
Patching Up The World With Golden Glue
It was in the Wall Street Journal, in their “Best of WSJ.Com’s Money Blogs” where I got the news that “As any private banker will tell you, the wealthy have become gold bugs. They are buying futures, gold bars, just about anything made from the shiny stuff.” Personally, this was surprising, since I didn’t know how or why bankers would know what the wealthy are doing, especially as concerns gold, but maybe this is because my relationships with my bankers are always frosty for one reason or another…
January 27th, 2009 | Mogambo Guru | 0 comments | Continued