What’s all this about “again”? We certainly have our problems but the U.S. is still an incredible engine. As the old saying goes, “In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.” We are qualified to be the one-eyed man today, having recovered more impressively than almost any other country from the Great […]
Eric Hanson
Entrepreneurship & Creativity
Thomas Friedman the columnist in the New York Times is always excellent. In a February piece he noted that if given a blank sheet of paper and told to write down America’s three greatest sources of strength, he would include, “A culture of entrepreneurship”, “An ethic of pluralism” and “The quality of our governing institutions”. […]
The Lessons We Have To Learn…And Learn … And Learn Again
You don’t need me to tell you the stock market has been on quite a roller coaster earlier this year. In the first twelve days of 2016 the Dow Jones lost over 10%. This is the worst decline to start a year since 1897. We have said before and I am sure we will say […]
Get Ready For Brand China
The rub with China has always been they are excellent at volume manufacturing but when it comes to developing global brands they are non-starters. Li-Ning the famous Chinese gymnast tried to develop a global athletic brand to rival Nike and Adidas. No traction so far. Apple earns the lion’s share of the profits from its […]
Seeking: Easy Work, No Heavy Lifting
Mark Twain is famous for saying, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”. The best and truest wisdom has no sell-by date. Timeless wisdom holds true regardless of the time or circumstance. Charles Ellis is one of Wall Street’s most noted observers. The following piece is from a speech he gave in Toronto in […]
The Gifts That Keep On Giving…And Giving…And Giving…
Online sales have come of age. We all know this. Check out the chart at the bottom. Sales have grown explosively. According the MasterCard Advisors it is expected that online sales grew by 20% in 2015. Logistics companies like FedEx and UPS have been running like crazy trying to get everything delivered on time. Not […]
Gentlemen Please…Please…Start Your Engines
The world has gotten off to a pretty nervous start here in 2016. As of this writing the Shanghai Stock Exchange is down 16% year to date and the S&P 500 has hit “correction” territory, down 10% from its highs. So what gives in the Middle Kingdom? China, as the chart below shows, has slowed […]
A Botanist’s Delight
In the old days, and I mean really old days, 150 million years ago, India was attached to Africa. It split off and moved east to where it is today and on its way it left Madagascar all by itself in the Indian Ocean. The island is not that well known but if you are […]
But An Economic Disaster
One step that can be taken is to improve the roads. Outside of the two major north/south and east/west roads, you need a 4-wheel drive to get around the country. Better roads would improve the ability of farmers to get produce to markets and ports, and in an agricultural economy this is crucial. A second […]
When Will The Fed Raise Rates?
We don’t have any inside information on the workings of the Fed but our bet is that Janet Yellen and company will start raising short term rates in December. Or at least we think they should. At the last Fed meeting the decision was made to leave rates as is, and the stock market declined. […]
Knowing Which Way The Wind Blows
It is pretty difficult to know what’s what in the world of Global Warming, or should we call it Global Weirdness? The weather we get these days seems to come in only one size: extreme. The world’s biggest weather phenomenon, El Nino, is expected to occur again this year. El Nino comes around every two […]
The First and Probably the Last
Comment that is, by us on the Presidential Campaign. We have enough trouble commenting on Wall Street. Politics is a whole other kettle of fish. But we spotted some things you might find interesting. The chart below is kind of busy but the message is pretty simple. Since 1990 Democrats have gotten more liberal and […]
