For decades after 1945, and especially after 1991, the United States was a role model for the world. Not only was its economy the world’s strongest and most prosperous, but its economic management, while falling short of true capitalism, represented an attainable model both for sluggish European nations and for fast-growing emerging markets. Its diplomats […]

Passively invested funds now account for 45% of all assets of U.S. stock-based funds, up from 25% a decade ago, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Indexed funds also account for 25% of bond funds. Between them, three large investment managers, BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, manage over $20 trillion of assets and they […]

Monthly Payments will resume on $1.8 trillion of U.S. student debt beginning in October, after a 3-year payment holiday for the Covid-19 pandemic. Since President Biden had been talking of more widespread debt relief (last week nixed by the Supreme Court) this will come as a nasty shock to 27 million ex-students, some of whom […]

It is hard to find a defense of populism in conventional media. The steady slide away from solid property rights in Europe (including the United Kingdom) and the United States since 1990 has been generally applauded, and its opponents demonized. Yet an economy without property rights is being shown year by year to make citizens […]

Even as a participant in the derivatives market, I found new derivatives wrinkles pretty boring, however lucrative they might be. Equally in software, the latest “social media” app, however irresistible to billions of dozy consumers, leaves me cold. Fortunately, help is at hand. With international tensions ever-increasing, research money is pouring again into the military-industrial […]

Communication and mutual understanding with both allies and opponents are key to a successful foreign policy. The skillful alliance formation and peacemaking of Klemens, Prince von Metternich and Robert, Viscount Castlereagh after the Napoleonic Wars led to a century of peace and rapidly increasing prosperity; the lack of it in 1914 and the late 1930s […]

Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL) is bringing out yet another virtual reality headset, the “Vision Pro” to appear early next year, priced at $3,400. This follows the total failure of Meta’s (Nasdaq:META) Metaverse and similar virtual and augmented reality products launched by Alphabet (Nasdaq:GOOG), Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) and others – I bought my son a $30 virtual reality headset […]

The past two decades have been wonderful for the luxury goods business as demonstrated by the position at the top of the world’s billionaire Rich List of Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH Moët Hennessey Louis Vuitton. Cheap money has boosted asset prices ad infinitum and the top 1-2% of the world’s population with significant inflated-value […]

President Biden appears adamant that he will not yield one iota to the Republicans demanding spending cuts in return for increasing the debt limit. He also claims to believe that through the 14th Amendment he can issue debt unilaterally, without Congressional approval. By doing so, he would take the position of an absolute monarch, like […]

Nonfarm labor productivity in the United States dropped at an annual rate of 2.7% in the first quarter of 2023, which followed a fall of 1.6% for 2022 as a whole. This does not appear to be a temporary phenomenon, or rather it appears coincident with the hyper-regulating Biden administration. Since productivity growth is key […]