Seven Surprising Truths about the World

Did you know that the incidence of cancer in the United States has been declining for nearly 20 years? That the spread of pornography correlates with a decline in rape? That average IQs are going up substantially all around the world? These are just some of the truths that are well-known to the scholars who study those subjects but generally come as a surprise to even the best-educated among us.

As reason reflects on how the world has changed since the magazine’s founding in May 1968, here are seven surprising pieces of unalloyed good news.

Read more at Reason Read More......

June: US jobs data triggers share price slip

7/6/2012 - US shares have fallen after official data showed firms had created only 80,000 new jobs in June, leaving the jobless rate unchanged at 8.2%. ✧ Job creation remains below the 100,000 judged necessary by the Federal Reserve for a stable job market, according to the US Labor Department. ✧ President Barack Obama said the rise in employment was "a step in the right direction". Read more at BBCNews/Business... Read More......

The Mystery Fuel That Drives the Market Higher

WEALTH DAILY, 11/19/2009 "U.S. Dollar Carry Trade: When Bad News is Good News" by Steve Christ [Advertisement but worth reading] - For the logically inclined, the action in the stock markets these days must be a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. ∴ That's how backwards things must appear as the unemployment rate goes higher and the markets jump right along with it. It makes no logical sense. ∴ In fact if you compared the rise in the unemployment rate with the rise in the DOW. . . you would be hard-pressed to either explain it or believe it. ∴ Yet as Rick Santelli pointed out last week, the correlation between the two is nearly 1:1. Amazingly, even as the unemployment rate hit 10.2% earlier this month, the Dow closed above 10,200. The strange part: the same thing also happened at 8% and 9% unemployment. ∴ And while this seems like nothing more than an odd coincidence. . . you have to admit it is something of a head-scratcher. Mr. Christ explains 'why' at Wealth Daily... Read More......

Watching the markets?

Are you trying to understand current market conditions? Here's a good explanation of this question:

What's the difference between "a market bottom" and a "bottoming process"? ... and, where are we now?

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Re-emerging As an Emerging Market

WASHINGTON POST, 3/29/2009(?) by Desmond Lachman - Back in the spring of 1998, when Boris Yeltsin was still at Russia's helm, I led a group of global investors to Moscow to find out firsthand where the Russian economy was headed. My long career with the International Monetary Fund and on Wall Street had taken me to "emerging markets" throughout Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America, and I thought I'd seen it all. Yet I still recall the shock I felt at a meeting in Russia's dingy Ministry of Finance, where I finally realized how a handful of young oligarchs were bringing Russia's economy to ruin in the pursuit of their own selfish interests, despite the supposed brilliance of Anatoly Chubais, Russia's economic czar at the time. ∴ At the time, I could not imagine that anything remotely similar could happen in the United States. Indeed, I shared the American conceit that most emerging-market nations had poorly developed institutions and would do well to emulate Washington and Wall Street. These days, though, I'm hardly so confident. Read more at the Washington Post...

H/t: John Detweiler, "Makes me wonder where we are going." Read More......

Economy: Obama Policies Feed Market Panic

MONEYNEWS.com, 3/5/2009 by Greg Brown - Since Barack Obama was sworn in as president on Jan. 20, stocks have tumbled to record lows — with investors losing an estimated $2.5 trillion in market value. --The trend continued Thursday, with the Dow closing down 281 points, a 4.1 percent drop for the day. Since Inauguration Day, the Dow has fallen 20.4 percent. --All week, negative headlines have competed with the slumping market ticker, including early news Thursday that General Motors might well go bankrupt despite billions in taxpayer loans. Continued at moneynews.com...

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Crony Capitalism vs. Free Markets

BELMONT CLUB, 2/28/2009 - The opening paragraph from the Times Online describes the plight of billionaires in a regulated economy: many Chinese “capitalists” who made fortunes through their connections with the ruling Communist Party are falling into disgrace. Although the Times Online describes this as the effect of “the communist nation’s flirtation with capitalism turns sour”, the correct term for economies in which connections, rather the market are determinants for success is crony capitalism. Read more by Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club... Read More......

Monday, October 13: Dow soars with 936.42 point gain

Wikipedia - "2008 - On September 15, also known as "Ugly Monday" [10], the DJIA loses more than 500 points amid fears of bank failures, resulting in a permanent prohibition of naked short selling and a three-week temporary ban on all short selling of financial stocks; "Dark Monday" September 29 brings the largest daily point drop on the Dow (777.68, almost 7%); the DJIA closes below 10,000 on October 6 for the first time since 2003; October 10 brings record volatility with an intra-day 1,018 point swing; "Manic Monday", October 13 brings the largest one-day Dow point gain ever (936.42) and biggest percentage gain (more than 11%) since 1933."

If October 13th is followed up with additional up days, many believe this will signify a sense of renewed confidence in U.S. capital markets and the intended effect of the bailout plan will have been achieved. Moreover, President Bush assured the nation that government intervention will be "temporary and limited." Later news reports described how our financial institutions might pay back the $250 billion government infusion. The other bit of encouraging news is that the government is not inserting itself into the management of the banking institutions receiving funds. Read More......