890 articles · page 21 of 45
A global pandemic. What does it mean in a global economy? Things are changing fast. There will not be a “normal” in a few weeks as we knew it. The epidemic will change business relationships. Since this site covers the financial services industry, it should impact portfolio investment advice and communications—there is no need for…
This is a great article about Jessee Jackson’s early days of proposing a single-payer healthcare system in 1988. It gives some real political context as to why the changes to the US healthcare system have failed due to the health insurance lobby. It points out that Hillary Clinton and, worse, Bill Clinton were corporate Democrats…
Behavioral economics has been described as a “revolution” that has taken over economics over the past three decades. Although it has been controversial, it is now regarded as providing a framework for investor behavior. In this Yale lecture from spring 2011, economist Robert Shiller, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economics, describes…
If you think the economic recovery prompted by the many effects of the COVID virus will be like past economic recoveries, think again. This is a global event and it has happened at unprecedented speed worldwide. It is a delayed virus and affects people who gather in groups. Now, predicting economic recoveries…
This is the first of a two-part series on how the combined impact of the COVID virus and corporate giveaways on state unfunded pension liabilities and how it will only make a serious underfunding problem more critical and possibly insurmountable. This may mean that state pensions are phased out and…
People don’t need advice on how to watch TV. After all, TV is designed to entertain and inform, and sometimes, in the burred world of modern journalism, those two goals are intertwined. That’s why MSNBC poses an interesting journalistic case. The network seeks to present high-level, informed opinions from panels of experts moderated by skilled…
When it comes to providing financial advice to individual investors for their personal and 401(k) plans, the financial services industry has always taken a very steady, conservative, and often, unrealistic, approach. The conservative approach has generally worked when markets were stable and conformed to the advice provided by the tested Modern…
There is a great scene in the movie “Titanic” when the chairman of the White Star Steamship Company, J. Bruce Ismay, the heir to the family that owned the Titanic, sneaks into a lifeboat that was reserved for women and children. In the movie, Ismay pushes past one of the ship’s officers to enter the…
Wisconsin is a Republican stronghold and the primary election this week shows they will do literally anything, including risking the lives of its own citizens to keep power. This is the Republican model for every other state in the union. Publications want to keep power at all c costs and they will do it via vote suppression, gerrymandering, and even risking people’s lives to make it harder and harder for average people to vote. This is Trump’s Republican party and every elected Republican buys into this scenario.
The cover story behind the multi-trillion-dollar COVID bailout is that it will benefit big businesses, the unemployed, and small businesses. But that is not the real story. This money will largely benefit hedge funds, private equity firms and global corporations, not average Americans or the unemployed. Sure, they will get a small, one-time check, but…
Trump is widely regarded as a sociopath who also is a great manipulator. Some people he manipulates are unwilling participants, such as the hundreds of contractors and suppliers he stiffed by not paying his bills in full. Other people he manipulated were willing participants who either tried to be part of his sleazy entourage…
When the federal government creates a huge program that offers loans to large segments of the population, it will also attract a disproportionate number of opportunists, fraudsters and white-collar criminals. The current $2 trillion bailout, the first in what is expected to be a number of federal loan programs to aid corporations and small…
“We live in the age of the overworked and the uneducated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become stupid.” –Oscar Wilde, 1891 Whether a huge portion of Americans is suffering from amnesia or stupidity, combined with an under-performing Democrat Party, the net result could mean Trump wins…
Trump is not a complicated politician or businessman. He only values good news, even when it is not true. He is not afraid to lie in order to create “good news.” So, it is not surprising that the Republican governor of Ohio, Mike Dewine, has complied with a Trump administration request to stop reporting daily…
When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ran against Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum, He showed his true colors: he adopted the classic Republican message. In this piece of campaign literature from 2018, DeSantis warns voters: “Don’t let Michael Bloomberg and George Soros control Florida!” Why would he use Bloomberg and Soros in his literature? These are buzzwords…
The current global coronavirus pandemic is impacting all aspects of social, economic and mental health, but it’s also impacting the retirement security of millions of Americans. The reason is that housing, including rental expenses and the level of homeownership, have all been negatively affected by the viruses’ economic impact. Homeownership is one of the…
Does anyone notice that as many wealthy Jews contribute to Trump, the rate of antisemitic attacks increases? Why would Jews contribute to the Republican Party that encourages or creates discriminatory domestic policies that increase the number of antisemitic attacks? It’s no secret that the largest financial contributor to Trump is Sheldon Adelson. Adelson, a major…
One of the more inexplicable outcomes of the Trump election is his appeal to observant evangelical Christians. The first question is how people who believe in a strict interpretation of the bible, all of its commandments, and Psalms can endorse and follow a presidential administration that is led by a man who is an adulterer,…
If you ever wondered what happens to politicians after they leave elected office and try to find a job in the real world, look no further. Here is a great video of a real live, former Republican elected official who received national attention when she ran as vice president of…
One of the basic requirements for any good journalist in mass communications is to ask tough questions or clarify what has been said so it can be understood by a larger audience. But, sadly, many broadcast journalists do not do this. They accept any answer provided by a guest interviewee,…
