The WSJ reports that used car prices are soaring. “The price of used cars is just crazy right now,” said Adam Lee, chairman of Maine dealer Lee Auto Malls. His dealership is paying hefty sums for cars it normally might not purchase to have a full inventory. “It can be a piece of junk--cars we used to pay $2,000 or $2,500 for, we are now paying $5,200 to $5,500,” Mr. Lee said.
The WSJ story meanders around for a cause but never mentions Cash for Clunkers, the most cockamamie sc... (more)
I have worked on Wall Street my entire life, and one thing I've learned is that large institutional investors, like pension funds and endowments, rarely veer from the herd. They manage too much of other people's money to stick their necks out alone – if their investments go bad, at least they can point to everyone else who fared just as poorly.
For this reason, these funds are often lagging in their perception of crucial market changes – changes such as a doomed cu... (more)
Presented by Jeff Tucker at "The Miracles of Capitalism," a high school seminar hosted at the Mises Institute and sponsored by Dr. Don W. Printz on 29 April 2011.
Swiss investor Marc Faber has just released his latest issue of the Gloom, Boom, and Doom Report where he discussed his outlook for the stock market, gold, emerging markets, and other financial topics. Here are a few highlights from the report:
1. Equity Markets–The markets may be giddy about stocks hitting new highs, but contrarian investor Marc Faber is having nothing of this. He is concerned that stocks will fall sharply in May and that the recent breakout in s... (more)
Looks like his predictions already manifested! - Chris, InfoLib
Probably the only piece of economic news that matters today, and possibly all year, no scratch that, since the "End Of The Recession" (NBER TM) - according to Reuters: "The April 20-23 Gallup survey of 1,013 U.S. adults found that only 27 percent said the economy is growing. 29 percent said the economy is in a depression and 26 percent said it is in a recession, with another 16 percent saying it is "slowing down," Gallup said." That means that more Americans think th... (more)
"Fight of the Century" is the new economics hip-hop music video by John Papola and Russ Roberts at http://EconStories.tv.
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Great Recession ended almost two years ago, in the summer of 2009. Yet we're all uneasy. Job growth has been disappointing. The recovery se... (more)
Amazon all but told South Carolina goodbye Wednesday after the online retailer lost a legislative showdown on a sales tax collection exemption it wants to open a distribution center that would bring 1,249 jobs to the Midlands.
Company officials immediately halted plans to equip and staff the one million-square-foot
Is going to college a worthwhile investment? Is the education that our young people are receiving at our colleges and universities really worth all of the time, money and effort that is required? Decades ago, a college education was quite inexpensive and it was almost an automatic ticket to the middle class. But today all of that has changed. At this point, college education is a big business. There are currently more than 18 million students enrolled at the nearly 5,000 colleges and unive... (more)
Has the U.S. housing market reached a "bottom" yet? Are home prices going to start recovering? Is the housing crisis going to end at some point? Today there are millions of American families that would like to buy homes but they are not sure what to do. After all, nobody wants to end up like all the suckers that bought at the top of the market and now owe far more on their mortgages then their homes are worth. A lot of people are really afraid to take out home loans right now. So should yo... (more)
This clown literally advocates a 25% tariff on all goods from China. All that is is a 25% tax hike on all Americans in order to subsidize some favored American manufacturers. Actually, scratch that, all the companies would do is move to Malaysia or Thailand to get around the stupid tax. - Chris, InfoLib
Jestina Clayton, a college graduate, wife, mother of two and refugee from Sierra Leone's civil war has been braiding hair for most of her life. Now she wants to use her considerable skills to help provide for her family while her husband finishes his education. But the state of Utah says she may not be paid to braid unless she first spends ... (more)
A meme is now circulating that gold is in a bubble and that it's time for the wise investor to sell. To me, that’s a ridiculous notion. Certainly a premature one.
It pays to remain as objective as you can be when analyzing any investment. People have a tendency to fall in love with an asset class, usually because it’s treated them so well. We saw that happen, most recently, with Internet stocks in the late ’90s and houses up to 2007. Investment bubbles are driven pr... (more)
All those who were hoping global stock markets would surge tomorrow based on a ridiculous rumor that China would revalue the CNY by 10% will have to wait. Instead, China has decided to serve the world another surprise. Following last week's announcement by PBoC Governor Zhou (Where's Waldo) Xiaochuan that the country's excessive stockpile of USD reserves has to be urg... (more)
Even though the White House has publicly downplayed the credit warning issued Monday from a leading agency, Obama administration officials were privately trying in recent weeks to convince Standard & Poor's not to lower its outlook for U.S. debt from "stable" to "negative," Fox News has confirmed.
But after a series of meetings between the Treasury Department and S&P, the ratings agency ignored the pressure and told administration officials late Friday that the U.S. government was... (more)
U.S. households are now getting more in cash handouts from the government than they are paying in taxes for the first time since the Great Depression.
Households received $2.3 trillion in some kind of government support in 2010. That includes expanded unemployment benefits, as well as payments for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and stimulus spending, among other things.
But that's more than the $2.2 trillion households paid in taxes, an amount that has... (more)
As a result of active "demonetization" efforts by the IMF and its member central banks, gold and silver have experienced the type of volatility that has given conservative investors reasons not to perceive the metals as dependable cash alternatives. Instead gold and silver have become known as the asset class to hold as a hedge against inflation.
However, during the 1990's, when inflation was in general much higher than it has been since the turn of the millennium, ... (more)
Investors who poured more than half a trillion dollars into bond mutual funds since 2007 will experience a market crash when interest rates rise, according to Marilyn Cohen, a Los Angeles money manager.
Cohen lays out a grim scenario in “Surviving the Bond Bear Market” (John Wiley & Sons Inc.), co-written with husband Chris Malburg. Rates will surge if the global economy strengthens or because investors lose faith in governments with growing deficits, said Cohen, whose book came o... (more)
