The 5% Solution In keeping with my Mad magazine motif this week . . . remember the Spy vs. Spy comic strip they used to run? That came to mind reading a Wall Street Journal article almost two months ago that presaged the latest upward spike in gold prices (now over $1,500 an ounce). See if you can tell who’s...Read More
Historic Night: ‘Where Were You When . . .?” There’s just one headline tomorrow, and that’s it. The news flashed simultaneously on virtually every news outlet worldwide, online and off, just after 10 p.m. (CST) tonight. The last time there was such a convergence was election night, 2008, when Barack Obama became the first African...Read More
United Healthcare CEO’s “Below Average” Compensation If you’d bought $1,000 of stock in United Healthcare a decade ago, and held on through the ensuing roller coaster, you’d have $6,400 today. Nice. But not nearly as nice as CEO Stephen Hemsley made out. According to yesterday’s Star Tribune: UnitedHealth Group Inc. CEO Stephen Hemsley took home $48.8...Read More
Michael Lewis Was Right Today’s lead financial news story appears to be the just-released U.S. Senate report on the financial crisis (formal title of the 650-page report, “Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse”). Not much new news, at least as far as I can tell: the mind-boggling greed and skulduggery of...Read More
Ben Bernanke’s Unintended Consequences The good news? Ben Bernanke has confounded naysayers, and proven that The Federal Reserve really can resuscitate (levitate?) the stock market — now up 85% from The Crash of ’08 lows. How? By printing money — lots and lots of money — and driving interest rates into the toilet (and keeping...Read More
“Is That Like a Licensing Fee?” Getting breakfast at McDonald’s this morning, my 8 year-old son asked me how much a Redbox was. If you didn’t know, McDonald’s — and virtually every other retail location — now sport the ubiquitous red vending machines that dispense DVD’s, not soft drinks. Thinking he meant a DVD rental,...Read More
