John Tamny, RealClearMarkets Seeking to boost the economy, House minority leader John Boehner wrote in a recent op-ed for USA Today that our nation’s fix lies in “fast-acting tax relief that lets families, small…
The latest chess move in the game to get control of Sirius XM (SIRI) is that the creditors are threatening to fire CEO Mel Karmazin if he takes the company into Chapter 11. The…
Nokia (NOK) is starting a software store for its handsets. According to MarketWatch, it will be “an online bazaar that will allow users to buy music or films as well as applications directly from their…
The US economy has a number of advantages over Japan. While Japan counts heavily on exports for its GDP growth, the US middle class consumes a great deal of what is produced in America. …
The advocates for nationalizing US banks have been out in force recently. Senator Lindsay Graham, who almost certainly does not have a PhD in economics or finance, told ABC News that banks were in…
According to Reuters, Obama has dropped the idea of appointing a “car czar”. Reuters reports that Japan’s GDP is dropping at an annual rate of over 13%. Reuters reports that the Administration is trying…
Markets in Asia were mixed. The Nikkei fell .4% to 7,750. The Hang Seng dropped .7% to 13,456. The Shanghai Composite rose 3% to 2,389. At the open in Europe, the FTSE was down…
General Motors (GM) will not file Chapter 11. The government cannot afford to see a large portion of the job creation benefits of the stimulus package destroyed by having the big car company’s fate…
Billionaire and activist investor Carl Icahn has made some large changes to his portfolio holdings. He and Icahn Capital, L.P. have not been immune to the market sell-off as you have seen in his…
Now that the government has set a number of caps on Wall St. pay packages, the question is whether the financial firms can get around some of the rules. Certainly not. Congress has too much invested in…
Wall St. keeps coming up with new ways to waste money and upset Congress, the Administration, and the public. Part of the argument made by large financial firms for paying out big big bonuses…
If you have used Twitter you either love it or can’t wait to get off it. Social networking meets micro-blogging. The company just closed on another round of funding, although it basically swears it…
The debt ratings agencies have been accused of being very late to the party on the financial crisis. But investors still watch the ratings changes from them, particularly when there is an upgrade in…
All told, the $789 billion economic stimulus bill contains about $50 billion for renewable energy projects, electric utilities, and other green companies. It’s possible to look at this sum in at least a couple…
There’s a fair amount of interest from green energy market watchers in the battery market. Many see this as the next big thing for energy investors. There are allowances for advanced battery technologies in…
Last September OGE Energy Corp. (NYSE:OGE) and Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. (NYSE:ETP) announced a joint venture to transport natural gas from Texas and Oklahoma to California and the northeastern US. It was an ambitious…
Tortoise Energy Capital Corp. (NYSE:TYY) has cut its first quarter 2009 distribution from $0.43/share to $0.40/share. For the full year, Tortoise expects to be able to pay investors at least $0.38/share quarterly. Tortoise Energy…
Itron Inc. (NASDAQ: ITRI) is supposed to be one of the winners in the stimulus package. The advanced metering company is known as the Smart Grid meter reader to many traders. The company is…
In this horrible market, dividends have been one of the few saviors for investors. But the latest trend of big-name companies slashing their dividend is concerning. Sadly, this trend will likely grow. Today it…
It is always heartening to hear the British describe a disaster. Their cool makes it seem as though almost nothing had happened. In the UK, shares of Lloyds shed a third of their value after it…