The Wall Street Journal ran a great article on Monday titled “How Skepticism Can Fuel a Rise: A Rally Too Good to Believe Also Has Cash Waiting to Enter; Acute Optimism Is What to Fear” (subscription required): ‘It is taking…
When I opened up The Wall Street Journal first thing this morning I could hardly believe my eyes. The front page announced two monster deals: Private equity firm Blackstone’s acquisition of Equity Office Properties (NYSE: EOP) (subscription required), the #1 office…
Milton Friedman, the great popularizer of free markets and “Monetarism”, emphasizing the importance of monetary policy in contrast to Keynes emphasis on fiscal policy, is dead at 94. Friedman was one of the important intellectual voices in the movement towards…
In an article posted today on Yahoo! Suze Orman writes: A financial advisor who makes all of his or her money on commission for the investments you buy and sell obviously has an interest in getting you to do alot…
As I wrote a few weeks ago, in my review of Yahoo!’s 3rd quarter, changes in stock options accounting made Yahoo!’s quarter seem worse than it was. In an aside in that post, I also mentioned my criticisms of the…
One often hears that there is no point in voting because millions and millions of people vote so that no one vote makes much of a difference. But, looked at another way, your vote counts more than you might think. In…
A couple weeks ago, regarding the so called “Rebuild California” propositions and their effect on outstanding state of California debt I wrote: If you are an owner of State of CA municipal bonds, as many people are because the interest is…
As I previously wrote, Proposition 90’s complexities regarding regulatory takings have led to doubt and confusion, even among some supporters. Some opponents have pointed to all the lawsuits that have resulted from Oregon’s eminent domain law that passed in 2004. However,…
Fundamentally, I think there are two main schools of investing. There are the guys who believe in doing rigorous research and finding stocks that are undervalued. These stocks could be undervalued because of their cheap price or because they will…
According to Dan Walter’s article in today’s Sacramento Bee: The latest survey on state taxes has been issued by the conservative Tax Foundation, dealing with what it calls the ‘business tax climate’. Ironically, the Tax Foundation found that California’s business…