Bottomed out?

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 12, 2009 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 4 comments Happy Friday everyone, As I am sure you all know, the financial markets have rallied over the previous three trading sessions. The initial spark was Citigroup having released the news that their results for the first two months of the year were better than expected and that they were actually profitable. This is a good sign for the economy. Fear about the health of banks is what has been the...
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Speak of the devil, so to speak

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 10, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments So just after my comment earlier today that regulators need to begin talking about new regulations to better shepherd the financial markets, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, said, “…the time for such a longer-term discussion has come…”. Shazam! What exactly did Bernanke propose? Well the details are a little thin at this point, but here is what has been...
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A proposal for change, part I

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 10, 2009 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 2 comments With this post I am going to take a chance and try and make some suggestions as to what needs to change in our economy in order for it to survive its current credit-crunch spawned problems, permanently change, and thrive into the far future. Whew! Here goes… I have been saying for many months now that three things need to change before the economy stabilizes and recovers from its problems....
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Some signs of rationality

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 10, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Good day everyone! While most of our fellow citizenry seems to be having a religious experience in relation to the economy, there are some signs of rationality returning to the financial markets. The proof is in the merger and the acquisition. As we have talked about before here on ze blog, all of finance boils down to: buy low, sell high. And as is abundantly clear, assets of all kinds are...
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The incentives are all wrong

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 5, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Hello everyone! I promised that I would do a blog based on Nate’s excellent comment from last week. Nate had made the point that the problem with all of the government stimulus is that there were no rewards for people who have managed their finances responsibly and continued to do the right thing financially. And I believe that he is entirely correct in this view. The problem with all of...
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It’s all relative

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Mar 2, 2009 in Blog | 1 comment Happy March everyone, You have doubtless seen the news that the Dow Jones is at levels last seen 12 years ago, yes? So 12 years worth of market gains have been erased by the current financial crisis. However, implicit in these sorts of statements is an assumption that the rational price levels were when the Dow was around its all-time high, c. 14,000 points. I have a big time quibble with that....
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Cue Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Feb 24, 2009 in Blog | 2 comments Let the meltdown ensue. Well folks seemed to be holding onto the notion that the U.S. government and other world governments would be able to bail out industry the way it has done in the past. It’s not as if the governments are not doing the right things, because they are. However, what seems to be utterly lacking and utterly unaddressable is the crushed will power of people around the...
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