Early Retirement Blog

There has been a lot of talk recently, about a Class War in America,  with both Democrats and Republicans accusing each other of engaging in class warfare. Republicans claim that Democratic calls for tax increases on the wealthy, is class war on “job creators”, which will only cause higher unemployment.  Democrats claim that the Bush [...]

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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke burst the commodity bubble.   In announcing the launch of  “Operation Twist”, an end to quantitative easing and a re-shuffling of short-term U.S. Treasury holdings to long-term U.S. Treasury purchases, Ben Bernanke stuck a knife into the commodities bubble. The commodity bubble promptly burst and deflated.  Gold, oil, silver, soybeans, copper, [...]

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Having run out of ways to betray his supporters, President Obama has taken to betraying himself, going back on his word to take Social Security cuts off the table.  Obama betrays Obama. It seems it was only last week, which it was, when President Obama announced that he would ask the Congressional (un-democratic) Super Committee, [...]

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President Obama’s Jobs Plan is to rob your retirement to give tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy elite.   Obama’s Jobs Plan will not create a significant number of jobs, although, it may save a few jobs, most importantly his own. The payroll tax cut de-funds Social Security, giving you a few more dollars now, [...]

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The global economy is collapsing in 2011, for the same reason the economy collapsed in 2008, the greed and arrogance of investment banks and hedge funds. A little history is worth remembering.  Four years ago… The economic collapse of 2008 began a year earlier in  August of 2007 when, my former employer,  BNP Paribas froze [...]

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It’s the taxes stupid!  California class warfare is underway, as in-state and out of state billionaires, fund  ballot initiatives  that would reduce pension benefits for government workers.  Why do billionaires want to get rid of public worker pensions? Read the first sentence again. You see, the state of California, and cities such as San Francisco [...]

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Two interesting interviews, of two leading economists over the weekend, about the state of the economy and what is needed to get it growing again.  According to Nouriel Roubini and Paul Krugman, we have a zombie economy, and we need the threat of a space alien invasion to spur massive government spending. First Roubini, in [...]

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Global stock markets are entering a “new danger zone”, says Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank. Coming this fall to a country near you – Bank Bailout II “What’s happened in the past couple of weeks is there is a convergence of some events in Europe and the United States that has led many [...]

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“Two more years of pain.”  That is the message Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave to American seniors, when he announced in his unprecedented declaration that, “Interest rates will remain at zero for the next two years.” Retired seniors, who depend on bond and CD income to fund a large part of their retirement, can [...]

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Why are global stock markets crashing after Obama and Congress passed the debt ceiling limit?  The debt ceiling deal caused global investors to lose confidence in the ability of the United States to properly manage it’s economy, and to take seriously it’s responsibility, as the world’s reserve currency. The debt ceiling deal was an act [...]

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