09 Sep 2011

Posted at 13:05h in The Friday Brief by
Last night the president laid out a $447 billion jobs plan which includes continuing the holidays on some existing tax cuts as well as adding some new employer-side cuts. More than half of the plan is focused on tax cuts while another $105 billion goes to infrastructure renovations including school modernization, transportation projects and rehabilitation of vacant properties. 

17 Jun 2011

Posted at 14:30h in The Friday Brief by
Rising incomes and asset prices cover a lot of sins. For decades, consumers, businesses, and most notably our government, enabled by a steadily expanding standard of living, have adopted excess as an entitlement. The overwhelming impact of years of excessive spending and over-borrowing is becoming increasingly acute as none of the usual remedies is working. Wasteful government stimulus (with a few possible exceptions from T.A.R.P), Fed-controlled interest rates at near zero for years, and quantitative easings 1 & 2 (Fed buying US debt) have all fallen well short of their usual potency. We seem to have hit the wall; our excesses have finally caught up to us. 

16 May 2003

Posted at 15:25h in The Friday Brief by
It has been easy to focus on the numerous hurdles our economy has endured over the past several years and to assume that new ones will continue to manifest themselves, keeping us in the doldrums.  But, what if things started going right, or even mostly right, for the next several years?  One might argue that conditions have never been better in history for growth than they are today. 

14 Feb 2003

Posted at 16:13h in The Friday Brief by
High terror alerts across the nation have likely negatively impacted our economy of late, but the numbers from January look pretty good.  TheU.S.consumer continues to support this economy to the amazement of many economists.  Retail Sales excluding autos rose 1.3% last month, according to the Commerce Department.  Building materials, higher gasoline prices, and higher prices on imported goods helped boost the index.  Retail sales represent 30% of the U.S.economy.