Author Archive
Consumer Confidence Highest Since 2008
by Gary D. Halbert Between the Lines With yesterday morning’s awful report on 1Q GDP, many people quickly forgot that another report on Tuesday showed consumer confidence rose this month to the highest level since January 2008. Remember that consumer spending makes up almost 70% of GDP, so rising…
5 Women Who Made Me Rich and What They Can Teach You
By Dennis Miller My grandmother refused to share the heart-wrenching details until I was in the Marine Corps. I’d heard bits and pieces about my ne’er-do-well father but didn’t fully grasp the devastation he’d left behind until Grandmother spilled the story with tears in her eyes: Your father never worked….
Fed Dials-Down Its 2014 Economic Forecast
Between the Lines by Gary D. Halbert The Fed Open Market Committee (FOMC) concluded its latest two-day policy meeting yesterday with no big surprises in its formal policy statement. Yet the Fed significantly reduced its forecast for economic growth this year, as I will discuss below. In yesterday’s policy statement,…
Why Treasury Prices Are Rising This Year
Between the Lines by Gary D. Halbert To the surprise of most forecasters, US long-dated Treasury prices have risen significantly this year, even as the Fed continues to wind-down its QE purchases. When Treasury prices rise, yields (interest rates) fall. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes plunged below 2.5% in…
How to Die in Dignity Without Leaving Your Spouse to Starve
By Dennis Miller We’d all been waiting for the big day, but the chapel the ceremony took place in was very small—just a room with Christian symbols and a few chairs. My wife Jo’s father was waiting for us in his hospital bed, grinning from ear to ear. Despite the…
New EPA Regs Will Hurt Economy, But Who Cares?
Between the Lines by Gary D. Halbert On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed sweeping new rules (645 pages) which will require existing coal-burning power plants to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 30% by 2030. With the abject failure of “cap-and-trade” in President Obama’s first term, these new EPA regulations…