What are we using to gauge a potential recovery?  Are we basing it on fundamentals or on a hot stock market?  Despite the semi-positive economic indicators, there are still ugly indicators out there as well, namely job cuts.
Today, Eli Lilly announced a round of job cuts.  5,500 people or about 14% of its staff are being cut in an effort to lower costs.  While the job cuts have clearly slowed since early in 2009, they are still happening and the U.S. economy is still bleeding a few hundred thousand jobs …

Cash for Clunkers is complete and it was a huge success!  Or so our leaders and experts tell us.  Next up, Cash for Appliances (I’m not kidding).  The problem is that these programs do nothing to help our economy and instead, they are just attempts from our politicians to look like they are doing something to improve the situation.
Moving Demand From One Area To Another
Sure, the Cash for Clunkers program was great for auto manufacturers.  It provided a short term boost.  We can argue that it just moved up demand …

We’re being told at every angle that the economy is recovering and that we’re out of the woods for the most part.  One of the biggest reasons (I have many reasons) that I struggle to fully embrace the green shoots or the recovery mantra is that the Fed is still pretty much fully engaged in their attacks on the recession.  Sure, they’ve announced some programs are ending but these are not the major components of their strategy.  Until the Fed raises rates, they are still terrified of the recession.
My point …

I came across this video the other day.  It is an interview with Milton Friedman on the Donohue show from several years back.  It is a must watch.

Who do you think won the argument?

The following content is written by Charlie Reese, a former writer for the Orlando Sentinel. While I concede that this is probably too many politically-oriented articles for one week, this is an interesting read that I encourage all to check out:
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation …

With the healthcare debate hot right now, I was recently explained a great real world example of a “public option” when it comes to insurance.  It was so interesting that I wanted to pass it on to my readers here.
The Citizens Property Insurance Corp was established in 2002 in Florida to serve the purpose of being a last resort for home owners in Florida who cannot get insurance from private insurers.  Due to hurricanes and other issues, home owners insurance simply was not affordable for many people and therefore, the …

As I’ve mentioned in some previous posts, I’m on the look out for a distressed property that can provide some cash flow opportunities.  While a vacation investment property is probably too good to be true, I believe a cash flowing property is a definite possibility.
I don’t think real estate has bottomed; therefore, I’m definitely not going to rush into any one property.  As I mentioned before, I think it may take several legs down to sufficiently demoralize the public from dabbling in real estate.  When I have multiple people telling …

A ponzi scheme as defined by Wikipedia is:
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned.
While the above definition does not distinguish new investors from old investors, this is an important and common characteristic of Ponzi schemes; namely, old investors are paid with money from new investors.  So, how does this apply to the actual stock market?
In a recent article on Yahoo, Robert Kiyosaki talks about how the …