People, being what they are, inevitably tend toward conflict; nations, being assemblies of people, inevitably tend toward war. John Kennedy’s admonition for mankind to put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind is heeded no more …

Stuy’s Sunday Side – Gettysburg: A Turn of History, in Horror and Glory Read more »

By J.G. Collins Posted: May 29, 2013, 06:30 With all due respect to Senators Levin, McCain, and the others on the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations, Apple, Inc., is, indeed, avoiding taxes, albeit legally.  What the senators seem to overlook …

Apple’s Tax Bite Is Cut by Tax Accounting, Not the Tax Code Read more »

UPDATED 22 May 09:15 The New York Federal Reserve President made some suprising comments at a talk at the Japan Society.  Among other things, he revealed that the Fed balance sheet expanded as a by-product of transferring private long-term risk …

NY Fed’s Dudley: Expanded Monetary Base was to Transfer Long-Term Risk from Private Sector Read more »

A Tea Party Protester

By J.G. Collins – New York  May 12, 2013 Anytime grievous organizational wrongdoing is discovered, it must be addressed immediately, forthrightly, and completely by the organization’s principal leader, speaking with one voice, until every aspect of the wrongdoing is discovered, …

For the C-Suite, the IRS “Tea Party” Scandal is a Lesson in Bad PR Gone Worse Read more »

The dismal March jobs report, printing at less than half of expectations, raise additional questions about the strength of the current recovery.   While its well known the current recovery is weak, its less well-known that this is the weakest …

We’ve Spent Trillions and Four Years on a “Potemkin Village” 2% “Recovery”. So, What’s Next? Read more »

Yesterday’s Commerce Department headline  number led a number of reporters and analysts to conclude that the US Manufacturing Sector was experiencing a solid comeback.  An increase of 3%, month-over-month, surely signaled a solid upswing in manufacturing, right? And with that, …

For Manufacturing Data, Boeing’s Big Orders ARE Better – Deceptively So Read more »

If there were awards for creating market instability, the ECB/IMF plan to impose a “tax” on Cypriot depositors – effectively renouncing depositors’ insurance guarantees – would rank second only to the US Treasury decision to let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt, …

Containing a Potential Cyprus Catastrophe Read more »

                                         Most business people who sell overseas and tourists who have traveled to Europe and Asia are at least vaguely familiar …

“Heads We Win; Tails You Lose”: How Foreign VAT Undercuts American Companies Overseas (and Benefits Foreign Companies Here.) Read more »