Brits on Ice or Return of the Cod Wars?
Jim Anderson's Postcard from the Telecosm
March 08, 2010 Jim Anderson, CFA
In a stunning turn of events, the citizens of Iceland voted more than 93 percent against a referendum that would required them to repay the British and Dutch governments for money they fronted to bail out depositors of Icesave, the Read More
0 | Join the Discussion

Point / Counterpoint: When and How Fast Should the Fed Boost Interest Rates, and Why?
Jim Anderson's Postcard from the Telecosm
March 02, 2010 Jim Anderson, CFA
When the crisis hit, the Fed pulled every lever on their control panel to prevent a complete meltdown. Picture Homer Simpson in full panic at the controls of his nuclear power plant pulling every lever, pushing all the buttons and turning each dial as the sirens sound and red lights flash that the core is going critical. Like Simpson, Bernanke's Fed pulled a lot of levers that had never been touched before and some that many of us never knew existed. Now that the crisis has been averted, how can we tell which actions were important and which were extraneous or even misguided? See Jim Anderson and Joe Morgan's Point / Counterpoint Read More
0 | Join the Discussion

Of Banks, Countries and Bailouts
Jim Anderson's Postcard from the Telecosm
February 23, 2010 Jim Anderson, CFA
All eyes in the financial markets have been focused on Greece for some weeks now. The Greeks borrowed too much money and now international financiers are worried about how they will pay it back. The government must raise €53 billion this year or about 5 percent of GDP. Total Greek sovereign debt is somewhere between $300 and $400 billion. Read More
0 | Join the Discussion

The Wilson Imperative
Jim Anderson's Postcard from the Telecosm
February 16, 2010 Jim Anderson, CFA
Last week the Financial Times reported that Tami and Randy Wilson of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania were the first couple to successfully sell a carbon credit after having reduced their carbon footprint. They accomplished this by dumping their son's heated water bed (as an aside we were somewhat astonished that water beds made it out of the '70s), turning off their TVs and computers when not in use, changing out their light bulbs to a dimmer variety and hanging their laundry to dry rather than using a gas or electric clothes dryer. Read More
0 | Join the Discussion

Work and Pray
Jim Anderson's Postcard from the Telecosm
February 09, 2010 Jim Anderson, CFA

“Work and pray, live on hay, you’ll get pie in the sky when you die” Joe Hill (1912) This weekend we began thinking about labor productivity. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it is because it seems everyone I talk to

Read More
0 | Join the Discussion

Dancing at Davos (Again)
Jim Anderson's Postcard from the Telecosm
February 02, 2010 Jim Anderson, CFA
Each year, a group of 2,500 of the famous, powerful and beautiful gather for a week in Davos, Switzerland to solve the world's thorniest problems. The traditional hubris that accompanies the World Economic Forum established by Swiss economist Klaus Schwab Read More
0 | Join the Discussion

Things That Go Bump in the Night
Jim Anderson's Postcard from the Telecosm
January 26, 2010 Jim Anderson, CFA

Every now and then there is a sound out in the countryside loud enough to break through to the Beltway echo chamber. Last week that sound came from Massachusetts, ground zero for the original revolution. Scott Brown's stunning upset in the special election for Senate has everyone talking. Democrats are rattled and Republicans are cheering, perhaps prematurely, an apparent mood shift in their direction.

Read More
0 | Join the Discussion

A New Aristocracy?
Jim Anderson's Postcard from the Telecosm
January 19, 2010 Jim Anderson, CFA

Two Weeks ago Orin Kramer, Chairman of the New Jersey Investment Council (advisor to New Jersey public pension funds), estimated that U.S. state and municipal employee pension funds have a $2 trillion deficit. This, of course, pales in comparison to the estimated $107 trillion deficit the Feds have amassed for Social Security and Medicare, according to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees' Reports. But the states are in a different bind as California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger so artfully pointed out in his budget message last week, "Sacramento is not Washington. We cannot print money."

Read More
0 | Join the Discussion

Lost Decades
Jim Anderson's Postcard from the Telecosm
January 05, 2010 Jim Anderson, CFA

Twenty years ago last week, the Nikkei hit 38,916. Last week it closed at 10,638, a loss of 73 percent. Also in 1989, the Japanese quarterly GDP was running at ¥425,452 billion compared to today's ¥470,954 billion, an 11 percent increase over 20 years. Urban property prices are now one-third of their peak values compared to 1989. 

Read More
0 | Join the Discussion

Nine Things That Won't Happen in 2010
Jim Anderson's Postcard from the Telecosm
December 29, 2009 Jim Anderson, CFA

This is the time of year when lazy commentators and journalists rerun ad nauseum retrospectives of the past year and predictions of the year to come. Not daring to break with that tradition, we offer up both. First, with all

Read More
0 | Join the Discussion