Cuba Without the Sun It drove Gerard Depardieu to relocate to Russia’s flat tax paradise (with its 13% flat tax, it is the geographically largest tax haven in the world), and no doubt contributed to the decision of countless young Frenchmen with entrepreneurial inclinations to leave for friendlier places. Mr. Hollande’s economic policies have led to noticeable growth of…
OVERNIGHT MARKETS AND NEWS March E-mini S&Ps (ESH15 -0.23%) this morning are down -0.26% and European stocks are down -1.06%, both at 2-week lows. Energy producers are leading the overall market lower after crude oil fell to a 5-1/2 year low. Also, Greek sovereign-debt concerns have undercut European stocks with Greece’s ASE Stock Index down over 4% to a…
Traditional pensions have been under attack for decades. Employers don’t want the open-ended liability and have been closing their plans to new hires and, in some cases, freezing benefits. But if you were lucky enough to be grandfathered into an existing pension plan, you could generally rest assured that your benefits, however modest they might…
The new year is not even a week old and already the volatility fireworks are off, as well as the continued commodity derisking. But while for now US stocks continue to be an island oasis in a turbulent global sea where GDP forecasts decline every single day, the same can not be said about the…
AUD/USD The AUD/USD pair initially tried to rally during the course of the week, but as you can see gave back all of the gains in ended up forming a hammer. The hammer sits just above the all-important 0.80 handle, so at this point in time I would be a little bit leery of selling this…
Another year rolls in as the secular bull market continues its march. We have seen some modest selling, although there has been little in the way of volume to back it up. The S&P is sitting on its 20-day MA having closed Friday on an indecisive ‘spinning top’ doji. The index to watch for 2015…
by Philip Pilkington Here’s an interesting little debate from earlier this year that I came across yesterday evening. It is between a number of market analysts over whether the current stock market is overvalued. Why is that interesting? Because the argument is focused on one of the best known foundational stones of heterodox economics: the Levy-Kalecki profit…
Last year came and went but not without a good bit of excitement and intrigue along the way. We saw: The rise of ISIS in the Middle East The death of several famous celebrities including the witty Joan Rivers The end of the Federal Reserve’s QE campaign The unexpected declines (except by me – here…
In very early Asia, participants responded to Draghi’s sovereign bond buying hints, and Merkel’s seeming willingness to let Greece leave EMU by send the euro to a low of $1.1865, according to Bloomberg. The thin conditions exacerbated the move, but the single currency has not been able to resurface above the $1.1980 area since. Softer than…
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.” –Ludwig von Mises The surreal…
