Legal Duplicity
Christopher Rad of Cedar Park, Texas, was just sentenced to 71 months in prison for executing a technologically advanced update of a very old stock scam. Mr. Rad enlisted the aid of hackers and spammers to spread rumors and interest equity investors in various stocks, including RSUV, QRVS, VSHE, SVXA, and ASIC. The scheme involved .. read more
Durable Monopoly
Any truly capitalist economic system is instilled with an embedded remedy for the natural progression of business and production toward monopoly. The very success that society needs and benefits from capitalist progression, owing to innovation, naturally thins the herd of producers. The most successful producers continually suppress their own production costs through “small-scale” innovation and .. read more
Housing Permits Flatline; Starts Drop
Continuing on the theme of housing data volatility, there was much contradictory information in the latest release from the Census Bureau on residential construction activity. The headline number for seasonally adjusted annual rate of new permits topped 1 million for the first time since the housing collapse. That’s an 87% rise from February 2011, only .. read more
Exploring the Limits of Monetary Intervention
The mini-cycle in inventory has re-appeared in the latest two regional manufacturing surveys. Both the Empire Fed and Philly Fed indices have again fallen below zero, indicating a contraction in activity. However, it is the frequency of negative readings that is most relevant. Since the middle of 2012, both surveys (along with their three other .. read more
Early Warnings In the Italian Loan Market
Banco Popolare, one of the 25 largest banks in Europe and one of Italy’s largest, was forced to inject “capital” into a subsidiary joint venture, Agos Ducato SpA. Losses have been mounting at Agos, a consumer lending conduit in Italy, for more than a year. The company is joint venture between Banco and French megabank, .. read more
Lack of Ambiguity Across Europe
The recession deepened in Europe, but that was not a surprise to anyone outside the economics profession. While Germany stays perched upon the precipice of another contraction (Q/Q), the rest of Europe was not so “fortunate”. While we can label these gyrations in GDP re-recession, double or triple dip, etc., the truth is that this .. read more
There’s That Word Again
The Federal Reserve on a few separate occasions, as I noted late last week, has begun to peremptorily quash the growing use of the loaded word “bubble”. From academic papers to Fed speeches, US monetary policymakers want to make sure that investors and the public know they are watching for them though they have yet .. read more
Retail Sales Bounce
After two successive months of contraction in retail sales (in real terms), April’s estimated balance was a bounce higher. Given the volatile nature of economic data, this upward move is not unexpected. Total retail sales (including food, autos and gasoline) grew 4.5% in April 2013 Y/Y, much better than the 0.98% and 1.95% in February .. read more
