Wow on the Dow

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on May 6, 2010 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments The news today is sure to be replete with stories of the almost 1,000 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Averages.  That is pretty close to a 10% drop.  Ostensibly the stock markets value the worth of U.S. businesses.  Can anyone out there reading this honestly say that the value of almost all U.S. businesses today changed by 10% in the negative direction?  No.  Were stocks 10% overvalued,...
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The investor elephant in the room just put on some weight

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 31, 2010 in Best of the Blog, Blog, Predictions | 1 comment Today saw the release of March private payroll data from the nation’s largest processor of payroll checks, ADP.  Unemployment “unexpectedly” increased by 23,000 jobs in March vs. an expected 50,000 jobs added by a swath of economists. Analysis: Folks this is not good news.  Not only did the economy not add jobs last month, it shed quite a few jobs.  Economists are clearly...
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The asymmetry of market rises and falls

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Feb 16, 2010 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 1 comment The financial markets are largely moving sideways, neither strongly up, nor strongly down.  In my opinion this is a proper response to unexciting economic and business news.  Firmly stated, stock markets are fairly, to slightly over-valued at this point.  This provides a convenient backdrop for today’s post which I hope serves as a cautionary tale. In life to create something wonderful and...
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It’s the unemployment rate, stupid

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Feb 5, 2010 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments This morning the Department of Labor announced that the U.S. economy lost 20,000 jobs in January.  Note the round figure; this is always a sure sign of an estimated number.  No big shakes there as the DoL’s jobless rate figure is always an estimate that gets revised multiple times before the figure is “official.”  Which brings me to December’s revised figure of 150,000...
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Today we surrendered democracy to capitalism

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 21, 2010 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 1 comment Today, in a decision that I am certain will go down in infamy, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn 20+ years worth of legislation that had limited the ability of corporations to spend money to win political influence. This is deeply disturbing to me and here’s why… We have two main institutional power structures operating in the U.S.: democracy and capitalism. Despite the...
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A classic mislead on the part of Allstate

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 15, 2010 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 4 comments The car insurance company, Allstate, is currently running an ad in which it says, “Last year GEICO customers who switched to Allstate saved an average of $473 on their car insurance.” While I paraphrased the punch line, this is the gist of their commercial. This is a classic example of a deeply misleading ad, one true in form, but off in substance. What many manipulators of...
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Robber barons

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Dec 29, 2009 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 1 comment Congress is currently considering legislation that will change the way executives in the United States are compensated. Even in these formative stages of the legislation there is tremendous hue and cry from executives of BIG corporations. The gist of their message is: without high pay they cannot attract talent and therefore their businesses are not managed well and ultimately that shareholders...
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