The monthly ritual known as the jobs report made its appearance last week, followed metronomically by the monthly ritual of commentary and political reaction to the jobs report. It was a good report, as they go, with “ better-than-expected” job creation, more workers returning to look for work (hence a slightly higher unemployment rate of 5.7 percent) and major upward revisions to reported job creation in November and December of 2014.
Read moreReinterpreting Jobs Report
CNBC Contributor Zachary Karabell, weighs on the nature of U.S. jobs growth and higher wages.
Read moreDon’t Turn America Into Europe
The Europeans—some of them, anyway—are finally beginning to concede that austerity has gone awry. There’s less growth, more structural unemployment, little bank lending and economic contraction. And now, of course, we have a political backlash in the person of Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Greece’s Syriza party, who upon winning the prime ministership last Sunday declared grandly (and probably over-optimistically) that Greece will now “leave behind the austerity that ruined it.”
Read moreSolving the Active Vs. Passive Investing Debate
Active versus passive. No, it’s not a debate to stir the passions of the public, but in the world of investing and deciding how to gain exposure to sectors, it is a rivalry up there with the Hatfields versus the McCoys, the North versus the South, the Yankees and the Red Sox. Proponents of active investing tout the ability of astute fund managers to beat the managers and add “alpha,” that amount of outperformance attributable to the skill of the manager. On the flip side, advocates of passive investing point to the long-term inability of most active managers to beat the market and to the high fees charged for sub-par performance, not to mention the tax inefficiencies. And so the debate goes.
Read moreWhere Was Obama When the Middle Class Needed Him?
Six long years into presidency, Barack Obama has finally made the middle-class an explicit priority— placing “middle-class economics,” as he called it repeatedly in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, front and center on his agenda. But what the president is asking for may be too little and it’s arriving far too late. While his proposals are sensible— lowering the tax burden on middle-class families and expanding access to education, job training and retirement, in part by closing loopholes and raising taxes on capital gains—very few of them have much chance of passing.
Read moreA Dynamic World Demands Dynamic Scoring
One of the first things the new Republican Congress voted on this week was to mandate a change in how the Congressional Budget Office analyzes (“scores”) spending bills. A technocratic change in how Congress assesses the impact of its proposed bills is not typically the stuff of great drama. This time is different.
Read moreWill Politics in 2015 Catch Up with the Economy?
In the waning moments of 2014, something happened that had been a long-time coming but seemed it might never arrive: the public mood in America shifted, ever so slightly yet significantly, from negativity and pessimism about the arc of the economy to something approximately hope about the future. If that holds, 2015 is going to look and feel rather different, and rather better, than things have in years.
Read moreWhat Should Investors Expect in 2015?
‘Tis the season for looks back and looks forward. The financial world will be replete with such missives in the weeks to come, and that is actually all for the best. Given the fluid nature of money and planning and investing, regular assessments of what worked and what didn’t, how the year played out versus expectations, and what might lie just ahead, are vital. While it is true that forecasts about the future usually say more about present sentiment, thinking ahead does provide a framework for assessing likely risks and potential opportunities.
Read moreThings United on a Global Platform: The New Distributed Intelligence
Discussion on the Internet of Things
Read moreNavigating China’s Internet Maze
Panel discussion on Navigating China's Internet Maze
Read moreNo, This is NOT the ’90s Economy Again
With only one more report left, 2014 is shaping up to be the best year for job creation since 1999. Predictably enough, last week’s strong numbers (321,000 jobs added) inspired some commentators to suggest that the report was not just good news,
Read moreHow The Ruble Crash Could Strengthen Putin
The ruble is crashing, but the Russian government isn’t going to any time soon. Ironically, Russia's economic distress might even make Vladimir Putin stronger.
The reasons for the ruble’s rapid decline – it’s dropped by nearly 13 percent against the dollar in November alone, and this week has seen more of the same—are neither obscure or surprising.
Read moreWhy Keystone is a Canard
Sideshows can be immensely entertaining and highly distracting. Old-time circuses had bearded ladies, freaks and strongmen; today in America we have the Keystone XL pipeline. It is the ultimate sideshow, one masquerading as a solution to real problems when, in fact, it is largely symbolic, and not particularly potent symbolism at that.
Read moreDon’t Fight Powerful Stock-Market Trends
Unless you have been living under a proverbial rock for the past few weeks (though unlikely if you are reading this), you know that the midterm elections in the United States saw a Republican sweep, with enough senatorial seats gained to take control of the Senate, more seats added to their majority in the House, and a few extra governorships picked up along the way.
Read moreWhose Economy Will It Be in 2016?
The ugly midterm campaign season provided one area of common ground: Americans and their candidates were almost universal in their disdain for the country’s economic performance over the past six years. In exit polls on Election Day, 78 percent of voters said they were worried about the economy, and clearly the Democrats took most of the blame.
Read moreStorm on the Horizon? The Changing Climate of Financial Markets
In the closing video from our 2014 Miami event, we highlight the testing conditions in financial markets. Robert Westcott, former advisor to President Clinton, examines ‘climate change’, whilst economist Zachary Karabell argues we should be looking at different indicators all together.
Read moreStop With the Fiction of a Binary Economy
The economy is a mess. It’s one thing many Americans and political candidates of all stripes seem to agree on. While it may be somewhat less of a mess than five years ago, the thinking goes, the current administration and Congress have done little to address the crushing challenges faced by large swaths of the American public.
Read moreInvesting in Do-Good Stocks Is Sustainable
Faced with the daily noise of markets’ ebbs and flows (and of late, that news has been coming in at a fast and furious clip), it’s easy to overlook the deeper trends.
Yes, a series of geopolitical crises and challenges remain and create current headwinds; yes, few feel overly confident about the tenuous state of the global economy; and yes, the recent market selloff has only fueled legitimate concerns about the future direction of interest rates and equities.
Read moreDon’t Panic!
For the past three years, stock markets have been either placid or up. That is especially true of U.S. stocks, but global markets have largely followed suit. Bonds have been similarly subdued. Over the past two weeks, that calm has been shattered.
Read moreGreenberg’s Folly
Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, the former CEO and one of the largest shareholders of the American International Group, claims that the $180-billion federal bailout of AIG in 2008 actually cost AIG shareholders tens of billions of dollars.
Read more