Author Archives: Steve Kamman

I figured I’d share part of an e-mail exchange this morning on the concept of “Technical Debt.” The term is well understood term in technology circles, poorly understood by investors, and totally ignored by accountants.  It explains a lot about … Continue reading →

Miners used to carry caged Canaries for early warning of toxic gas.  The Canaries would keel over from the gas before the miners would. The Canary here is US Telecom CenturyLink, who recently cut its dividend by 53% while raising … Continue reading →

In all the comment around Amazon’s decision to cancel their “HQ2” in New York, I’m surprised to see some salient questions un-asked. After such an exhaustive public search, why didn’t Amazon just pivot to the #2 choice? If New York didn’t … Continue reading →

A break from musing about monetary policy.  🙂  The main axis of political difference today isn’t left vs. right.  It is Reality vs. Fantasy axis.  A vicious cocktail of cynicism and self-delusion driving real-world policies with real-world consequences. Madness is always … Continue reading →

Trying to pull some recent threads together.  Still puzzling things out myself.  The charts below are the crux of the question.  Look at the bottom (purple) line – the Fed Funds rate –  vs the market-driven rates above it. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=mY7o … Continue reading →

UPDATED:  From the FT and per the below:  “The prices of Venezuela’s government bonds have jumped from about 23 cents on the dollar earlier this month to over 33 cents on Monday, while bonds issued by PDVSA, the state oil … Continue reading →

Have sympathy for the Wizard of Oz. And for the Fed. People really really want to believe in a Wizard. In control. Keeping us safe. Every society carves out this lonely role role that someone must play – Wizard or … Continue reading →

One of my New Year’s resolutions is re-starting the blog. Little Bear is at 16 months, still a bundle of fun, and a bit less work. I’ll probably focus more on Economics/Markets, but range around as before. I am more … Continue reading →

The House Republican Tax Plan’s most perplexing (and schadenfreude inducing) element is how badly it would screw a core Republican voter group.  The merely affluent.  That suburban/urban “I really just don’t want to pay taxes.” voter. The calculus is clear.  … Continue reading →

A quick note between feedings (baby Curtis Bear is 3 weeks old and doing great and, actually, giving us little cause to complain). The markets continue to climb the proverbial “wall of worry (markets’ periodic tendency to surmount a host … Continue reading →