13 Mar 2009

Posted at 16:46h in The Friday Brief by
This afternoon we find the S&P 500 advancing for the fourth day, up nearly 12% for the week. News on Tuesday that Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit’s remarks in an internal memo saying the bank is having its best quarter since 2007 and comments from regulators in Washington suggesting they may reinstate rules that limit short selling sparked the rally. By Wednesday it looked like it would run out of steam when Thursday’s Retail Sales report demonstrated there was still life in the consumer. The possibility that consumer, the largest part of the US economy combined with the picture Bernie Madoff swiftly and justly being escorted off to jail in handcuffs gave the market it’s second powerful boost upward. This week’s move dramatically demonstrates how fast markets can move on relatively little information.

06 Mar 2009

Posted at 13:30h in The Friday Brief by
The free enterprise system that made this country second to none on earth is in the cross-hairs of an increasingly out-of-touch Washington, D.C.  Frank, Dodd, Pelosi, Reich, Schrum, and others boldly, arrogantly, and endlessly flog the whole of in particular Wall Street and free-enterprise in general. As they continue, they risk dousing the spirit of risk-taking which drives our economy. If Mr. Obama places himself in the company of Abraham Lincoln he must better understand that the 16th President was a champion for the protection and nurture of the free enterprise energy of this country. In a famous speech in February of 1859, Mr. Lincoln the patent system “secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things.” Mr. Lincoln observed that the government was not the inventor, the creator, or the risk taker, but rather the protector of the free citizen; protected by this government to take risk in hopes of profit, not vice versa.

27 Feb 2009

Posted at 14:09h in The Friday Brief by
Mr. Obama’s budget is out and the message for investors is as clear as any missive from Washington in a long time. Get the defense on the field and keep ‘em all well watered. . . they may be out there for a while!

20 Feb 2009

Posted at 14:13h in The Friday Brief by

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."George Santayana, in The Life of Reason 

“Common sense is very uncommon.” Horace Greeley

There seems to be a sense in Washington in this time of crisis that the rules of ordinary behavior of most any kind simply don’t apply. Whether observing economic behavior, spending behavior, fiscal behavior, monetary behavior, political behavior, or what used to be generally acceptable and responsible behavior, it’s all up for grabs these days. Didn’t we get into this mess by abandoning the ordinary rules of lending and of borrowing and regulating?