President Zero Sum Goes to Asia
By Larry Kudlow
President Obama took his declining dollar to the Asia-Pacific economic conference, and he added to it a declinist opinion of America’s economy. His big message? Don’t count on American consumers to lead the world from recession to recovery and beyond. His second big message? In the U.S., we must save more and spend less. Huh? This is the same limits-to-growth, central-planning wisdom we hear so often these days at home. It’s also tone deaf, to say the least. Despite a sinking greenback that is wreaking havoc among the Asian economies, and in the face of repeated currency warnings by Asian officials, Obama brought no King Dollar stabilization message to the conference.
Read President Zero Sum Goes to Asia — By Larry Kudlow
Economic Freedom Fighters, Unite
By Larry Kudlow
It must be something in the water. The ruling Democrats know that their tax-hiking, re-regulating, and big-spending policies have failed to rejuvenate job-creation or reduce the unemployment rate. And yet they persist in trying more of the same.A recent New York Times editorial acknowledges that the economy is weak, but it pleads for yet another federal stimulus package. The Times editors want another round of unemployment benefits (this would be the third) to subsidize non-work welfarism. They also want more federal spending on state Medicaid — an area that already has been showered with federal taxpayer money to no economic avail since it has nothing to do with economic growth.Can’t we do better?
Read Economic Freedom Fighters, Unite — By Larry Kudlow
Weak Dollar, Oblivious Treasury?
By Donald Luskin
Many conservative commentators have expressed concern over the recent sharp decline of the U.S. dollar on world currency markets. On the face, there is cause for alarm. When pit against a representative basket of foreign currencies, the dollar is down an average of 15 percent in just over seven months. If it falls about 5 percent more, the dollar will hit an all-time low.In this light, it’s not surprising that various nations, especially China, say the dollar should be dethroned as the world’s reserve currency, and the currency in which much global trade and investment is denominated. These cries come just as the U.S. government needs foreign investors more than ever to help finance record deficits and accumulated debt.
Read Weak Dollar, Oblivious Treasury? — By Donald Luskin
Dollar Suicide
By Jerry Bowyer
It wasn’t Colonel Mustard in the library with the candelabra. And contrary to recent press reports, it wasn’t Prince Alwaleed in the desert with a cartel. It was, in fact, Dr. Bernanke in the temple with the printing press. And since Dr. Bernanke is, in effect, the dollar incarnate — the walking embodiment of the soundness of our currency — if the dollar does die, it will not have been murder. It will have been suicide.
Read Dollar Suicide — By Jerry Bowyer
Storm Clouds Gather as Dow Hits 10,000
By Larry Kudlow
Dow Jones 10,000 arrived on Wall Street on Wednesday for the first time in a year. It’s a milestone of sorts, and it certainly represents a vote for investor confidence in economic recovery. Blowout profit reports from Intel and JPMorgan helped fuel the day’s 145-point gain. So did a retail sales report that, excluding Cash for Clunkers, was actually quite strong.Profits are the mother’s milk of stocks, business, and the economy. And top-line sales revenues now appear to be bolstering the corporate cost-cutting effort. As long as these earnings keep coming in strong, stocks will keep rising. My hunch is that we’ll move back to pre-Lehman levels — to over 11,000 on the Dow and over 1,200 on the S&P. Backed by an easy-money Fed, the economy will probably grow in a mild V-shape of 3 to 4 percent for the next year or so.But storm clouds are gathering.
Read Storm Clouds Gather as Dow Hits 10,000 — By Larry Kudlow
Kevin Warsh Is on the Money
By Larry Kudlow
Attendees of the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh and members of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington should carefully read a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Fed governor Kevin Warsh. In a piece titled “The Fed’s Job Is Only Half Over,” the former Wall Street investment banker sends a shot across the global economic bow. He says the Fed’s job will not be done until it removes the easy-money policies put in place over the past year. In other words, an exit strategy.Warsh writes that “policy likely will need to begin normalization before it is obvious that it is necessary, possibly with greater force than is customary.” He’s saying the Fed must be tougher, and act sooner, if it is to avoid an inflationary bubble reminiscent of the 2002-06 period, or for that matter the 1970s.
Read Kevin Warsh Is on the Money — By Larry Kudlow
The Government-Insurance Option Is Dead
By Larry Kudlow
The day after President Obama’s impassioned speech for big-government health care, Wall Street bet heavily that the so-called government-insurance option he supports is dead.In a strong stock market on Thursday — the market’s fifth-straight daily rise (so much for the September swoon) — health-insurer shares advanced significantly. Cigna increased 5 percent; Health Net almost 5 percent; Humana 3.5 percent; and UnitedHealth Group 1.5 percent. Hospital shares like Community Health Systems and Tenet Healthcare also rallied smartly, climbing about 5 percent each. Drug company Pfizer rose more than 1 percent.
Read The Government-Insurance Option Is Dead — By Larry Kudlow
Monetary Muddle
By David Gitlitz
Brighter economic fortunes are usually met with expectations of less-easy monetary policy from the Federal Reserve. When recession sets in, the Fed loosens its stance to spur recovery. When recovery takes hold, the Fed tightens policy to stave off higher inflation.But things are going to be different this time around. The Fed got very easy during the financial crisis, going to extraordinary lengths to guard against an outright deflationary implosion. It cut its target rate to near zero and flooded the markets with liquidity. And it is nowhere near ready to declare victory.
Read Monetary Muddle — By David Gitlitz
Some Data for Mr. Biden
By Jerry Bowyer
‘Facts are stubborn things,” wrote John Adams; I’m tempted to add: “But not as stubborn as Joe Biden.”The vice president recently told the Brookings Institution that he has no doubt that the Obama administration’s stimulus plan has been a success. In fact, it’s been so successful that it has moved us from the precipice of a second Great Depression to the safer ground on which we now discuss recovery.
Read Some Data for Mr. Biden — By Jerry Bowyer
Hey Conservatives, Were Recovering
By Larry Kudlow
Believe it or not, sometimes good news on the economy can be bad news for stocks.It’s a distant point, but one worth considering in view of conservative pessimism over Obama’s plans to spend, tax, borrow, and control the economy. I share these worries. But the U.S. is still a free-market economy, and it will be so at least until the health-care and energy sectors are nationalized. And free-market economies are resilient and self-correcting.While so-called spending-and-deficit stimulus may be an economic depressant, Friedmanite monetary stimulus — which has been substantial — is gradually exerting a powerful impact on economic growth. At the same time, businesses have become lean and mean, with radical cost-cutting of inventories, employment, and hours worked. That’s setting up a big profits surge, which is the biggest economic stimulus of all.
Read Hey Conservatives, Were Recovering — By Larry Kudlow
Longest. Lives. Ever.
By Jerry Bowyer
The Centers for Disease Control released its “National Vital Statistics Report” this week, and BuzzCharts was especially interested in the latest figures for life expectancy. It turns out that Americans are living longer than they did at any time in the nation’s history. The average lifespan is just shy of 78 years, with women living slightly longer than 80 years. Males and females, blacks and whites — we’re all living longer than ever before.So what’s all this noise coming out of D.C. and the left-wing media about how terrible our health-care system is? Why are we told of its unsustainability, its inherent greed and corruption, and its tolerance for tonsillectomy mills? Watching all this hand-wringing, one might think that Americans had the highest death rates ever recorded, rather than the lowest. But men who are ambitious for power find good news to be the least useful news of all. Hence, four-score life expectancies — the dream of previous generations — go unheralded.
Read Longest. Lives. Ever. — By Jerry Bowyer
Robert Novak, R.I.P.
By Larry Kudlow
Now we say good-bye to Robert Novak, who passed away early Tuesday morning at the age of 78. Yet another conservative icon has left us. He was a good friend, and an amazing reporter. In fact, I believe he was the best reporter of his generation, which spans all the way back to the Eisenhower years.Bob had a lot of opinions — conservative opinions; Reaganesque opinions. But his pursuit of journalistic detail, facts, scoops, and stories that no one else got was remarkable. He was “old school” in this respect, which is why he was so esteemed by political allies and critics alike.
Read Robert Novak, R.I.P. — By Larry Kudlow
|
|
|
|
