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Why Holiday Shoppers May Be Overspending
Tweet Share on Facebook November 30, 2011 Comment (2)There are Grinches everywhere this year.
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11 Dates Investors Need to Watch
Tweet Share on Facebook November 30, 2011 CommentThere are known unknowns, as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously said, and then there are unknown unknowns.
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Why Holiday Spending May Peter Out
Tweet Share on Facebook November 29, 2011 CommentCBS News recently invited me on-air to explain why strong holiday sales and a surge in stock prices may not last. Here's the clip:
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Let's All Act Like Congress
Tweet Share on Facebook November 23, 2011 Comment (7)If you're disgusted with Washington, don't bother complaining. Instead, do what they do.
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Congress and the NBA, Double-Teaming America
Tweet Share on Facebook November 22, 2011 CommentQuick: Name a dysfunctional group of overprivileged egomaniacs.
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The GOP's Unwitting Tax Hikes
Tweet Share on Facebook November 21, 2011 Comment (8)Most Republicans in Congress have pledged never to raise taxes, no matter what. But that rigid stance may end up costing Americans more than overt tax hikes would.
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Beware the Upbeat Economic News
Tweet Share on Facebook November 18, 2011 Comment (4)Everybody's eager for some good news on the economy, and lately we've been getting some.
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How Obama Can Survive a 2012 Recession
Tweet Share on Facebook November 17, 2011 Comment (10)It's axiomatic that recessions sink presidents. A mild recession helped bounce George H. W. Bush from office in 1992. Double-digit inflation and rising unemployment scotched Jimmy Carter's reelection bid in 1980. No incumbent president since FDR in the 1930s has been reelected in the midst of an economic downturn.
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3 Reasons the Markets Might Rally
Tweet Share on Facebook November 15, 2011 CommentFeeling lucky?
Ordinarily, investors do their best to apply hard logic to decisions about how to deploy their money. But more than ever these days, investment decisions boil down to whether you're an optimist or a pessimist.
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3 Reasons the Markets Might Tank
Tweet Share on Facebook November 15, 2011 Comment (1)Good investors are skeptical by nature. But not usually dour, depressed, or despondent.
These days, however, the worst-case scenarios are awfully dim. There's always something that can go wrong, but in today's economy, the shock absorbers are so worn that minor disruptions could have major consequences. The biggest worry, of course, is Europe, where there's a non-trivial chance that Greece and Italy could both default on their debts, plunging the continent and its banks into an unprecedented financial free-fall. In the United States, bungling policymakers grappling with ways to reduce the national debt could trigger further downgrades in the nation's credit rating and perhaps another recession. Then there's the bursting asset bubble and economic slowdown in China, which wouldn't be that much of a danger if the rest of the global economy were healthy. Unfortunately, it's not.
