Investment Watch Blog

via sfgate: California law strictly limits interest rates on loans of less than $2,500, and sets no numerical ceiling on interest for higher loans. But rates on loans for $2,500 or more can nevertheless be so oppressive — or “unconscionable” — that they violate the law, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday. In a class-action suit … Read more

https://twitter.com/OccupyWisdom/status/1029339254030299136 What we have witnessed in Emerging Markets is simply a continuation of what we saw with Equity Vol and very briefly in Italy. It is also the part of the same thing as the Crypto and Chinese equities corrections. The Unwind is underway. Markets are beginning to normalize. — Paranoid Bull (@paranoidbull) August 13, … Read more

via dailywire: On Monday, President Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a bill authorizing an increase of over 15,000 troops as well as a long-overdue pay raise for soldiers. The military spending package includes $717 billion for national defense in the next fiscal year, according to the White House. The additional soldiers will be … Read more

by Randy_Newman1502 A popular idea that has taken root in people’s imaginations is that “Glass-Steagall” would have “saved” the United States from the vagaries of the financial crisis. My objective here is to argue that it would have done no such thing. Now, I fully understand that it is extremely difficult to argue a counterfactual (what would have … Read more

by ARIZaL_ McDonald’s bun are made in Ontario, California.. but 14.4 million buns per week using “a handful of workers” so if we say wow man, that must be employing 30 workers at minimum wage, and we double their salary.. that’s an $8,700 increase across 14.4 million buns.. that’s a cost increase of $0.0006 per bun. See, … Read more

by SpicyMussolini For the past nine years, the equities market has seen one of the best percent gains since the Bull Market of 1948-1969. Corporate taxes are low, GDP growth is strong, and joblessness well below the Natural Rate of Unemployment (NRU). However, quite a few ratios, economic data, and past performances are pointing to … Read more

From Bloomberg: America never made up the growth it lost in the 2008 global financial crisis and the recession it triggered. A decade later, U.S. households are still counting the cost. Gross domestic product remains well below what its 2007 trend would have implied and it’s unlikely the economy will ever make up that lost ground, … Read more

The Infowars host hasn’t been silenced, but he feels he’s been denied an audience because the big tech platforms have a monopoly on your eyeballs Alex Jones, the head of a right-wing lifestyle brand selling paranoid insanity ― and boner pills ― complained this week that his suspension from a handful of major digital platforms … Read more

by BainCapitalist There are many, and deciding which ones are better than others is a subject of huge debate in macroeconomics. I’ll give you a couple examples: Inflation rate. This can more specifically be CPI, PCE, or a core measure. The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States uses a PCE-Core inflation target to judge the … Read more

by OfficialHavik   Usually the first sign of a downturn is when default rates for various kinds of debt rise (credit card, auto loan, etc.). Here’s an article from the NYpost talking about it. https://nypost.com/2018/08/11/more-americans-are-defaulting-on-their-credit-cards-analyst/ Despite a booming economy, many Americans are having trouble paying credit card bills, industry observers warn. An increasing number of … Read more

Article here Some of the more concerning ones: -Crowdsourcing CMG Financial, a lender based in San Ramon, California, has created Homefundme.com, where prospective home buyers can tap the collective pockets of their social network. “They can basically ask their family, friends, associates, colleagues, Facebook friends to give them five bucks here and there” toward a down … Read more

via businessinsider: China’s money-printing industry is running at “full steam” for foreign clients including Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India, Brazil, and Poland, according to reports. The printing is linked to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which has seen China build infrastructure and invest in about 60 countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa. “A nation must … Read more