There is good news and bad news about English today. If you are a native speaker then the news is good. English is the global language today and its lead over all others is growing not shrinking. French has been a competitor in diplomacy and also at the Olympics but its importance is receding. Chinese […]
Eric Hanson
Emotions on Parade
Barron’s reported recently that Ray DeVoe had died. Ray was a long time market commentator. I first ran into his material at Spencer Trask back in the 1970’s. The DeVoe Report was always thought provoking, often amusing and a must read in a world so full of throw away commentary. Ray came up with what […]
Stop Freaking Out About Retirement…
This does not come from some rose colored glasses, “The future is copacetic” kind of article. It comes from ConsumerReports, a pretty sober and practical publication. We have all read the stories that Americans are not saving enough and it’s probably true. It is estimated that 14% of Americans over 65 have no retirement savings […]
Yes, We Are Going To Have A Correction!!… Now Get Over It…
The stock market reached bottom in mid-winter, 2009. We are now in the sixth year of this Bull market. The rise in stocks has been very broad-based with most industries benefitting. And volatility has been very low. The chart below shows this is the fourth longest Bull run in the last 85 years without a […]
The China Brand? There Yet?…
China is a great manufacturing success and the Chinese economy has grown exponentially since the early 1980’s. No other country has even done what China has over such a sustained period. But people are hard pressed to name a global brand from China. They make the components but now they need to take the next […]
“You Don’t Take Trips, Trips Take You…”
This from John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley In Search of America. I was in North Dakota two years ago seeing the Bakken oil fields. I noticed on a map a road that goes straight down the country from the Canadian border north of Minot to Brownsville, Texas. I knew a heartland American road trip was […]
Our Energy Future – Two Takes…
The Wall Street Journal turned 125 years old this month. To celebrate, the paper published a twenty-five page look at the future titled, “WSJ 125”. Daniel Yergin the well-known energy commentator and the author of The Quest gave his take on what energy will look like two decades from now. The chart at the bottom […]
So Where is the Next Economic Shock?…
I wish I knew. The nature of shocks is they usually come out of left field. But still we fret. Individual investors are apprehensive today, concerned about the recovery and wondering where the next Bubble is. Owners of stock are enjoying the fruits of a rising market but they are not true believers. Wall Street […]
Eric Hanson Volunteered at the 20th Annual Walk for the Animals
Eric Hanson volunteered at the 20th Annual Walk for the Animals held by the Humane Society of Chittenden County on June 15th. This event is Vermont’s largest dog friendly event and features a 1.25 mile walk through scenic Burlington, a 5K Doggie Fun Run/Walk, music, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, fun, and contests! The HSCC raised […]
What are the Secrets to Life?
I’ll get to that in a minute. First an explanation of how this newsletter gets put together. We all read widely here, newspapers, magazines, trade journals, the internet, etc., and when we find interesting articles we clip them and add them to a big pile which accumulates by the inch and then by the foot. […]
The Mistakes We Make
The best definition of the stock market I know of is from Ray DeVoe, a market commentator with Spencer Trask in the 1970s and subsequently other firms, who said, “The stock market is only indirectly related to economics. It is a function of human fear, greed, and apprehension all overlaid on a business cycle.” We […]
China: Royal Flush or House of Cards?
The International Comparison Program, a loose coalition of the world’s leading statistical agencies, recently reported that China will become the world’s largest economy this year based on purchasing power parity. PPP measures what money can actually buy. For instance, a hair cut in China is much less expensive than one in the U.S. When you […]
