With the fall semester upon us, colleges and universities unveiled their plans for students—and many are just as quickly upending those plans.
Read moreWe Don't Just Need More Stimulus — We Need Smarter Stimulus
With the Republican-led Senate only just now unveiling its first draft of a next stimulus package and passage of a final bill dependent on weeks of arduous negotiations between Congress and the White House, the already-tenuous economic recovery just became more tenuous.
Read moreThe COVID-19 Recession Should Be So Much Worse. Why Hasn't It Been?
And yet, as bad as things are economically, it remains an open question why things aren’t worse. The answer is simple, and challenging: we may all be in this together as humans facing a virus but we are not equally in this together in bearing the economic toll.
Read moreA Safety Net Should Help People Feel Safe. The U.S. Managed to Do the Opposite
The primary reason for this massive surge in unemployment is of course the pandemic and the economic shutdowns to contain it. But government policy is also to blame.
Read moreStocks Are Recovering While the Economy Collapses. That Makes More Sense Than You'd Think.
What is going on? How can it be that stocks are soaring when the economy is crashing?
Read moreThe Fed's Unprecedented Bailout of Everyone and Everything Could Prevent Total Collapse
The Fed understood even before Congress that the health-crisis of the pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis caused by the shelter-in-place orders and shuttering of businesses, travel and events would easily morph into a financial crisis that could be magnitudes greater than what happened in 2008-2009.
Read moreThis Market Chaos Is Unlike Anything We’ve Seen Before. But Remember to Breathe
For weeks, I watched the evolving coronavirus crisis the way one observes an avalanche: it looks distant until suddenly it is upon you. I was inclined to take advantage and “buy the dips.” Then, something snapped: I started selling. I wanted cash. I panicked.
There. I said it.
Read moreThe Coronavirus Won’t Be an Economic Catastrophe — Unless We Let it Become One
It would be nice to be able to say when this will settle down, but as the old market cliché goes, no one rings a bell when markets hit a bottom.
Read moreA Stock Market Crash Was Coming, Coronavirus Was Just the Spark
It was the worst week for stocks since the financial crisis in October of 2008. It may get worse still.
Read moreThe Faulty Logic Behind the Market Sell-off
Things Are Bad Unless You’re Amazon, Starbucks or Expedia
Derivatives to the Rescue? How ‘Betting Against’ the U.S. Could Prevent A Default Crisis
Wednesday’s plunge in the markets signaled that the impasse over the debt ceiling ,if it continues, will eventually trigger a substantial market sell-off. That belief itself should have been a warning sign; when investors dismiss what is known as “tail risk,” only trouble ensues.
Read moreWhy is Obama Opposed to a Short-Term Debt Deal? Politics
s the tortuous debt ceiling debate continues, with plot twists that even the most diehard political junkies are having a hard time keeping straight, one aspect continues to bedevil the process: the staunch refusal of both President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to accept a short-term deal.
Read moreThe Optimism Deficit
In the nearly 15 years that I’ve been writing about markets and managing money, there’s been a dramatic shift that has gotten only marginal notice. We’ve gone from having an optimism surplus to an optimism deficit. That may be a greater problem than the budget surplus becoming a deficit.
Read moreThe U.S. Will Not Default on August 2
The only thing that matters for global markets over the coming days is whether a deal can be struck in Washington over the debt ceiling. That said, there is one major misconception – fostered by politicians – about what the stakes actually are.
Read moreApple Does it Again: Why Companies Win While Economies Lose
As Washington continues to skate perilously close to the economic abyss, 3,000 miles away in Cupertino, California, this week Apple released its results for the second quarter. To no one’s surprise but to almost universal amazement, Apple managed to sell more iPads (9.3 million) and iPhones (20.3 million) than ever before. Quarterly revenues of $28 billion were up more than 80% from last year, and profits were up 125%.
Read moreOur Real Debt Problem
On Friday, I posted a piece on the U.S. debt and how we are creating a false crisis given current interest rates and our ability to manage that. Judging from the responses, you would have thought I was penning a piece in defense of eugenics. OK, the online world is not known for its sobriety, but the heated reaction to my post is typical of the current debate about debt.
Read moreThe U.S. Is Not Drowning In Debt
In case you haven’t noticed, Washington is currently consumed in an acrimonious debate over whether to raise the debt ceiling. There is no agreement about whether to do so or how, but both parties appear to accept the logic that the United States is suffering from an unacceptably high level of government debt and that further debt will doom the U.S. to generations of decline. Judging by polling data, large swaths of the country agree. Nonetheless, that consensus is wrong.
Read moreThe Rebirth of the U.S. Auto Industry? Not So Fast
Over the past year, story after story has touted the rebirth of the U.S. auto industry. Ford Motors, which unlike General Motors and Chrysler survived the 2008-2009 crisis without taking bailout money from the federal government, has enjoyed a string of positive reviews, and its earnings and revenue are higher than at any point since the 1990s.
Read moreEven in the Struggling U.S. Economy, It’s Still Only Money
Listening to an interview with an Iranian-American journalist about being detained in jails in Damascus and Tehran, I was struck by the contrast between the extremis of those experiences and the daily drumbeat of high emotions about money.
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