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Some people may scoff at the Dream Ticket. Sen. Kennedy and House Speaker Pelosi reject it outright. But, it may well be that Hillary Clinton is vying for a VP slot. On April 23rd, I said:
Ultimately, David Gergen, a very prescient political analyst on CNN, may be right. He said it may [...]

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The inflation genie may be out of the bottle for a while. The headlines are being made by food and energy prices spiking higher. The Fed and many economists ignore food and energy when looking to underlying inflationary trends, relying instead on core inflation to signal the direction of prices. To date, core [...]

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Oil hit $126 a barrel today on production fears. Refiners and firms that need oil to make money seem to be hoarding it as the price rises inexorably higher. According to Bloomberg, “U.S. crude supplies rose 5.65 million barrels to 325.6 million barrels last week, amid increased imports.” In the end, this may [...]

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A Bloomberg article today highlight’s the Commercial real estate sector (CRE) as the next leg down in the U.S. property bubble. The article states:
With 312,000 private-sector jobs lost in the last four months, foreclosure rates more than double what they were a year before, and the homeowner vacancy rate at a record high, it’s [...]

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That’s the title of a UK Telegraph article on a report showing that UK repossession orders have increased to levels not seen since the housing bust of the early 1990s. According to this morning’s BBC 5 Live program, “Wake Up To Money,” the government claim that only a third of these repossession orders actually [...]

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Updated throughout the day
MarketsTop UBS banker detained in US – The Guardian (05/07/2008)Bernanke Wants Fed to Pay Interest on Bank Reserves – Bloomberg (05/07/2008)
USU.S. Economy: Worker Productivity Increases More Than Forecast – Bloomberg (05/07/2008)Tesoro posts a loss on plunging refining margins – MarketWatch (05/07/2008)Vallejo, California, Officials Vote for Bankruptcy – Bloomberg (05/07/2008)Pending Sales of Existing [...]

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Operation Chaos, Rush Limbaugh’s grand design, likely put Hillary Clinton over the top in Indiana. With the vote so narrow, Republicans who want the Democratic nomination to continue did their best by voting in the Democratic primary for Hillary Clinton.
Thirty-six percent of primary voters said that Clinton does not share their values. And [...]

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As the Democratic nomination race continues on and on without any end in sight, the question of Supreme Court nominees comes into play. The Court is obviously very right of center as it is presently staffed. A democratic President, backed by a Democratic congress, would alter this configuration. An editorial in today’s New [...]

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The Economist came out with an article today, provocatively entitled “Bomb OPEC.” In the article, they suggest that the 3 Presidential candidates’ economic policies and knowledge makes this campaign season difficult to watch. According to the article, none of the three is presenting a cogent economic policy. They would rather bash China and [...]

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Despite stock markets being lower the last few days, there are some bright spots in he macro picture. On Feb 24th, I mentioned that risk in the markets was high as suggested by the Ted spread. (The TED spread measures the gap between the interest rate at which the U.S. Treasury funds itself (3-month T-bills) [...]