Clueless, No Cushion, Not Enough Self-Control: Challenges In Managing Personal Finances

On Friday, PBS Newshour aired a fascinating piece called “‘Sesame Street’ Tells You How to Get to Sunnier Days Financially.” The title is quite deceptive given the valuable and revealing information and research described in this piece. Newshour provides background by citing some earlier studies on the limited financial education of Americans, our extremely low … Read more

Bond Offering Equips Google to Deal with Silicon Valley Heat…and Perhaps A Bottom for the Stock

California governor Jerry Brown surprised the state by announcing $6.6B in additional tax revenues that were not expected in the last tax year. In the context of Silicon Valley’s frenetic scramble for new hires, perhaps these revenues would be much less surprising. The job market is hot for engineers, start-ups are getting funded (and acquired), … Read more

China’s Inflation Could Be Worse but Stimulus Money Is Sitting In Investments, Not Consumption

Originally posted on “Inflation Watch“… Nightly Business Report produced a short video segment describing China’s inflation woes (transcript included) called “China’s Inflation Battle.” The commentator identifies China’s RMB¥ 4 trillion stimulus program (around $585B USD at the time) as the original source of the inflation and takes us to Pengshui, 1000 miles from Beijing, to … Read more

links for 2011-04-25

Dangerous Views of Volatility: Pay attention to the VIX, but don't just follow the crowd – Barrons.com The market remains schizophrenic. One day, stock prices tumble because Standard & Poor's questions the credit rating of the United States, and investors panic and sell and fret, and the front pages of many newspapers are apocalyptic. The … Read more