by Karl Schroeder for Finance
The Fed should raise short-term interest rates soon and by quite a bit. Why, you might ask should they do this? Because rates at zero have done their job and because once the real crisis passed this spring the need for zero interest rates was over. Would it make any difference to anyone in the real economy if short-term rates were 1.5% instead of zero? We doubt it. Would the financial markets scream and yell? Sure. But, the financial markets aren’t the real economy and we shouldn’t let the tail wag the dog. The financial markets would get over modestly higher interest rates a lot quicker than the real economy would, so let’s do it.
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by Matthew E. Karlovsky, M.D. for Health
Blood in the urine is never normal, but it can be present for benign and not-so-benign reasons. “Microscopic hematuria” is when blood is only seen on a urine test (urinalysis), or “gross hematuria” where actual blood or clots are seen in the urine.
There are many urinary tract issues that can lead to both, but essentially, blood in the urine can come from the kidney, ureter, bladder or urethra. Often menstural blood, or if urine contacts labial skin/hair on the way out prior to hitting the cup, can both lead to false positives.
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by Karl Schroeder for Finance
Rock Bottom
It was 27 years ago last week that the market hit its bottom in the 1981-1982 bear market. That market had seen stock prices fall to rock bottom valuations and yet, no one wanted to own stocks that summer. To think, Philip Morris at 6 times earnings and yielding 8%. The environment then was horrendous. Interest rates on long-term Treasury bonds were still at 12%, down from 15% in late 1981. The prime rate had fallen to 17% from over 20%. If you wanted a mortgage loan, you had to pay 18% or better. Unemployment was over 10.5% and still rising. Business Week magazine argued that stocks were dead. That was the bottom of a life time, unless you managed to live long enough to see the low earlier this year.
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by Karl Schroeder for Finance
Ready For Good Times?
Our great nation is on the verge of another great wave of growth. It may not come rapidly or at the exact time we may expect it, but it is coming. Why? Because we have all the ingredients we need to get lots of economic growth. Interest rates are low. There is lots of money flowing around. We have lots of unused capacity in labor and capital markets. Many cyclical industries are operating at minimal operating levels (so any increase in demand translates into marked growth). We have a consumer who has dramatically reduced consumption. Inflation is virtually non-existent, outside periodic bouts of commodity-driven price increases. And, the government has a program to pump money into the economy and create make-work jobs. There should be no question we are going to have a recovery. The only question is how powerful it is likely to be.
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by Karl Schroeder for Finance
It was Nixon who remarked after taking the US off the gold standard that “we are all Keynesians now.” That was the high water mark for Keynesian economic theory. Keynes’ proposal that government ought to step up during times of economic contraction and be the consumer of last resort was the lasting idea of his teachings. His ideas have been adopted by virtually every democratic government in the world since 1936 when he published his “General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”. The principal contribution of the ‘General Theory’ was the idea that the government had an obligation to do something during times of economic contraction to maintain aggregate demand by being the aforementioned consumer of last resort. This demand management seemed to strike a chord with politicians who could promise more, actually deliver some small fraction of that and none the less slop around in the economy a lot more than they were accustomed to.
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