Posts Tagged ‘inflation’
Smart Investing Daily – Are We Living in the Federal Reserve’s Twilight Zone?
Jared Levy, Editor, Smart Investing Daily
Friday, 19 November 2010
On Monday, an old friend sent me a link to a now virally famous cartoon clip via YouTube. The clip is a depiction of the Federal Reserve’s second round of quantitative easing in a simplified, humorous manner and has been viewed over 1.6 million times, not to mention it had a front and center showing on CNBC.
It comically poses questions that pretty much sum up the entire state of our economy right now. Is this some kind of a nightmare? Are we in an episode of The Twilight Zone?
Please watch the clip before you continue.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Quantitative easing, in theory, should put money into consumers’ hands to spend and into companies’ hands to hire. The Federal Reserve is worried about deflation.
But is this really the case?
Smart Investing Daily – QE2 & Monopoly
Why Quantitative Easing Is Similar to Monopoly
Tuesday, 02 November 2010
The second iteration of quantitative easing (QE2) is supposed to make “money easier” — make it flow from the banks to consumers to businesses, etc. The first round of quantitative easing pumped billions of U.S. dollars into the system, but not much of it made it into my hands, and I’m guessing yours either…
If you have ever played Monopoly and have been “the bank,” you get to control all the money that is divided out to each player.
Remember that the “extra” money is not part of the money circulating in the game yet.
Did you ever cheat and add a little of that “bank” money to your own reserves? I know some of you may have at least thought about it. I mean, how cool was it to just print or add money as you saw fit, so you could buy more stuff?
Smart Investing Daily – The “Inflate-a-Rally”
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We are now officially in the thick of earnings season, which means added volatility for the marketplace. Splashy headlines like Google’s surprise surge in sales are making the bulls bolder by the day.And as long as earnings reports continue to at least meet consensus estimates on average, that most likely won’t be the foundation for a correction… yet.
Smart Investing Daily – Food and Inflation
What the Texas State Fair Taught Me About Inflation
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
I spent my Saturday wandering around the good old Texas State Fair. I walked though the livestock area and stables full of animals of all kinds from all over Texas, and right before exiting I turned to my right to see “Millie” the Brown Swiss cow staring right at me.
My first thought, while staring back into the eyes of this cow, was inflation. Most don’t typically associate cows with inflation, I know. But here’s what that Brown Swiss cow and inflation have to do with one another…
Inflation Is Knocking
Sara and I have discussed printing U.S. dollars, monetary policy, budget deficits, gold prices, silver prices, precious metals and even crude oil as having direct correlations with impending inflation, but we must not forget about the most important commodity of them all… FOOD!
Without getting into gross detail about the world’s eating habits, I wanted to offer some simple examples to help you get a grasp on the importance and consumption of food and, more importantly, the prices of food when inflation comes to roost.