Category: Business Columnists

Bond Traders Blind-Sided in China

Commentary China’s regulators are putting its $21 trillion bond market at risk. The ham-fisted regime is not only centralizing financial power and reshuffling financial regulatory personnel but is also banning the best brokers and data aggregators from selling real-time price data. Screens where China’s bond prices appeared went blank on Wednesday. Managers at the China…


Anatomy of the Banking Crisis of 2023

Commentary For three years, I’ve been amazed at the relative calm in the financial system. It truly did not seem believable to me that governments and central banks could utterly shatter all market functioning and flood the world with paper money and yet there be no structural consequences for the banks. My only question was…


Bank Failures and Recession Ahead

Commentary While the market was surprised by the stronger-than-expected U.S. economic data like jobs, the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), and CPI, a run on the Silicon Valley Bank occurred resulted in its collapse. Ironically, some analysts were recommending banking stocks based on their interest rate hike argument. It turns out that the prices of these…


What Will Happen at the Next Federal Reserve Meeting?

Commentary “The 10-year note yield is where it was in mid-October [2022] when the funds rate was barely north of 3 percent. Bond market is saying recession/disinflation is in our future,” said economist David Rosenberg, on Mar. 9. This statement was issued before Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Silvergate Bank, and Signature bank had their collective…


Don’t Fear Central Bank Digital Currency, Embrace It Instead

Commentary Last week, South Dakota Republican governor Kristi Noem rejected a bill (HB1193) to update the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) with her own unique “brand” of veto. The veto came because Noem opposed the bill’s language outlawing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but allowing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), which is issued by governments. Noem…


Biden’s Proposed Cap Gains Tax Would Exceed 100 Percent

President Joe Biden’s proposed capital gains tax increase could result in an effective tax rate of over 100 percent after adjusting for inflation, according to recent calculations by Laffer Associates. The increase would more than double the tax investors pay on investments held longer than one year. The proposal, outlined as part of Biden’s $6.8…


Biden’s Proposed Cap Gains Tax Would Exceed 100 Percent: Economist

President Joe Biden’s proposed capital gains tax increase could result in an effective tax rate of over 100 percent after adjusting for inflation, according to recent calculations by Laffer Associates. The increase would more than double the tax investors pay on investments held longer than one year. The proposal, outlined as part of Biden’s $6.8…


The Fed Can’t Give Up the Inflation Fight Yet

Commentary Many people in Washington hoped for much better inflation numbers in February. Below zero would have released tears of joy following this rough weekend of bank failures and the first signs of financial instability in these three years of nonstop terrible. Alas, that did not happen. The report came in at a 0.4 percent…


High Cost of Stock Compensation Will Squeeze Tech Investors

Commentary Technology investors had a rough year in 2022. The Nasdaq Composite Index went down around 33 percent. Despite a rebound so far this year, investors are faced with lower revenue growth and a significant structural hurdle—consequences of increasingly higher stock-based compensation awards. This isn’t a new phenomenon. Technology firms have been gifting lucrative stock…


Biden, Democrats Wrong Blaming Trump for SVB Failure, Economists Say

In the immediate fallout of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank, President Joe Biden and several Democrats blamed former president Donald Trump’s deregulatory efforts in 2018. During Biden’s prepared address from the White House on Monday, he asserted that the previous administration rolled back several banking requirements aimed to prevent a…