Second Quarter Surprises We received two big surprises at the end of the second quarter — one from Washington and one from an ocean away. On June 28th, the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act as constitutional, calling penalties on individuals for failing to purchase health insurance a “tax.”…
The Fed Goes Too Far First, let me say, we owe the Federal Reserve our gratitude. Their actions to ease in many ways during and after the financial crisis averted financial meltdown and produced results in an economy that is regaining its footing, albeit at a “frustratingly slow” pace. The…
Before looking ahead to 2012, I can’t resist the traditional temptation to look back at the past year. The markets in 2011 were dominated by earthquakes and the tsunami in Japan, spikes in gas and oil prices, historic Federal Reserve actions where they “promised” to keep rates at their current…