Related: U.S. Stock Market on Life $upport
I'm not going to be yelling about it today.
"The Dow soared more than 250 points on the heels of strong earnings from Morgan Stanley, GE, and Textron and some encouraging economic reports. Market watchers warned investors to expect more volatility, reflecting concerns over weaker growth in Europe and plunging oil prices. A University of Michigan survey showed consumer sentiment unexpectedly rose last month to its highest since July 2007."
Just before the last crash.
"Opportunities exist to close gap between rich and poor, Yellen says" by Megan Woolhouse | Globe Staff October 18, 2014
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, speaking in Boston Friday, said the gap between rich and poor has widened dramatically in the past 25 years, but she said opportunities remain to bridge the income and wealth gap that has divided the nation.
It's a gap that has been abated and enabled by the $elf-$erving Federal Re$erve $y$tem that continues to do so, but never mind that.
Yellen, who opened the Conference on Economic Opportunity and Inequality at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said early childhood education and other programs targeted to children, affordable higher education, and increased business ownership could help restore upward mobility, which has stalled in the United States.
The same failed remedies so the phenomena of upwardly mobile wealth to the 1% can be maintained a while longer. This is all public relations propaganda.
And one more thing: Do what the rich do, and pass on the wealth.
Yellen said an inheritance is routine for the wealthiest families, but increasing the practice among those in lower echelons of the income scale would provide support to future generations with the potential to shrink the wealth divide.
We don't have enough money to live now. Goes to show you how truly out-of-touch the elites are with everyday people.
“It is no secret that the past few decades of widening inequality can be summed up as significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top and stagnant living standards for the majority,” Yellen said in prepared remarks. “I think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation’s history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity.”
Yellen did not address the recent turmoil in the stock market or growing uncertainty about the global economy. Her speech tightly focused on economic inequality and potential remedies.
The whole house is collapsing and she is talking $hit.
While inequality has gained more media attention in recently years, the Boston Fed has a long tradition of research on the topic, citing it as a problem in a report 15 years ago.
Yeah, when there is an election due at the political $hit-$how fooley pretends to give us a choice. Then it is back to bu$ine$$ as u$ual.
Much of its recent research and programming has centered on the fallout of the recent housing and foreclosure crisis on US households, the impact of race in mortgage lending, and ways to help cities create economic opportunities that boost employment.
Boston Fed president Eric S. Rosengren said in opening remarks that the mission of the Federal Reserve system is to “serve all American people” including those who can’t find jobs or are working part time when they want full-time work.
These blood-$ucking vampires actually believe their own spew.
I $uppo$e they have to; otherwise, it is a mon$ter in the mirror.
“Those are important questions as we think about the amount of slack in the American economy right now,” he said. Yellen pointed to data, adjusted for inflation, showing that the average income of the top 5 percent of households grew by 38 percent from 1989 to 2013, while the average income of the other 95 percent rose less than 10 percent.
The distribution of wealth is more unequal, she said. The wealthiest 5 percent held 54 percent of all reported wealth in the United States in 1989, 61 percent in 2010, and 63 percent in 2013. The rest of those in the top half of US wealth distribution — families with a net income of $81,000 to $1.9 million — saw their share drop from 43 percent in 1989 to 36 percent in 2013.
In other words, it really is all the loot going up, up, up!!
Yellen did note one bright spot: Rebounding home prices in 2013 and 2014 restored a good deal of value lost during the recession, with the largest gains for homeowners at the bottom. Home equity represents a large share of the wealth for many middle- and lower-income families.
While America is thought of as a nation of opportunities, Yellen cited research showing that economic mobility — or the ability of an individual or a generation to improve their wealth — is lower than in most advanced countries.
Just keep believing the myth, Amerikans, the one that was taught and reinforced your whole life.
Education funding through property taxes enhances inequality since wealthier communities have greater resources, she said. She said high-quality teachers, who tend to migrate to wealthier districts, can help equalize disparities.
“The United States is one of the few advanced economies in which public education spending is often lower for students in lower-income households than for students in higher-income households,” she said. “Some countries strive for more or less equal funding, and others actually require higher funding in schools serving students from lower-income families.”
Similarly, the median annual earnings for full-time workers with a four-year college degree are 79 percent higher than for those with a high-school diploma. She said the large and growing burden of paying for college poses concerns
While many in the top half of earners have ownership shares in some form of business, a very few in the bottom half — just 3 percent — own businesses. Another concern: the decline in the pace of US business creation.
“That slowdown in business formation may threaten what I believe likely has been a significant source of economic opportunity for many families below the very top in income and wealth,” she said.
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Look who else is licking it up:
"Janet Yellen wants to be the Fed chair for ally" Shirley Leung | Globe Columnist October 17, 2014
Chelsea is the last place you would ever expect to find Janet Yellen, one of the most powerful people in the world.
Then why is it such terrible shape, because I was told if women ran the world it would me a much better place.
But there she was Thursday, our Federal Reserve chair, a woman who so much as whispers and the stock market swoons. She stepped off a plane at Logan on a dreary, rain-soaked day and headed straight to one of the poorest cities in the Commonwealth.
Not worried about Ebola?
She wasn’t there to use Chelsea as a backdrop to deliver a dry policy speech like so many opportunistic politicians before her. She was there to listen to ordinary Americans, about the struggles they have, about the jobs they can’t find, about the bills they need to pay.
The benevolent banker, isn't that $pecial!
Yellen is the first woman to be in charge of our monetary system, and when she took the reins in February, she made it clear she wanted to be the Fed chair for all. That contrasts sharply with her predecessors, from Ben Bernanke to Alan Greenspan to Paul Volcker — none were exactly men of the people.
It would have been more of the same if President Obama had given the Fed head nod to Larry Summers, the bombastic former Harvard president, Treasury secretary, and White House economic adviser.
The president came to his senses after Senator Elizabeth Warren and Sheila Bair, the former FDIC chair and University of Massachusetts Amherst professor, put up a stink about not promoting Yellen, Bernanke’s steady and savvy number two.
Pfffft!
And that's the problem! It's not the gender or race of the person in that cla$$, it's the in$titution and $y$tem itself that is rotten. Doesn't matter who is the figurehead.
Chelsea was the first stop on a two-day visit to the region, which culminated Friday in a keynote address at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on income inequality.
Yellen visited an area of Chelsea that decades ago hummed with cardboard box manufacturers.
When that business went away, the neighborhood became desolate.
Where did it go?
So the factories go over there, and the recycled cardboard is shipped over so they can put the product into boxes and ship it back to AmeriKa?
What's the carbon footprint of all that?
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Acting like the petite grandmother she resembles, Yellen peppered people with questions: What’s the job market like? Do you have the right skills? Can you get training?
I don't want to get near grandma then.
At one point, during a tour of the center, she blew kisses to a little girl playing in an on-site day care. Afterwards, she let people take selfies with her....
She's a $ELLEBRITY!!
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I'm just about fed up with the fawning.
"Stock turbulence is worrying for IPOs" by Dan Adams | Globe Correspondent October 18, 2014
The initial public offerings of several prominent Boston-area companies this year were supposed to be the first in a series of success stories for the region’s blossoming crop of startups.
Now, after a wild week of ups and downs on the stock market, leaders at Boston’s IPO-bound technology companies are privately weighing whether to delay, according to their investors.
“For companies on the precipice of going public, it’s a deep concern,” said Jeff Bussgang, a partner at Flybridge Capital Partners. “IPOs require calm markets.”
What?
*******
After hitting an all-time high of 17,279 in mid-September, the Dow Jones industrial average entered a steep dive late last week that bottomed out at 16,117 Thursday. On Friday, the index clawed back to 16,380....
As the next wave of companies consider going public, the experiences of two marquee Boston-area companies that concluded IPOs in the past few weeks don’t offer easy lessons.
Shares of Boston-based online home goods retailer Wayfair floundered after a strong opening, sinking as low as 22 percent below its initial $29 price before rallying somewhat Friday.
I warned you.
But digital marketer HubSpot has mostly been riding high, its shares remaining well above the IPO price of $25.
Pharmaceuticals seem to be protected.
Some investors cautioned against drawing conclusions from Wayfair’s and HubSpot’s performances so far.
“Is this is a sneeze, a cold, the flu? No one knows yet,” said Maia Heymann, senior managing director of Cambridge venture capital firm CommonAngels Ventures. “Great companies that are growing and hitting their plans can get out even in choppy markets.”
Ebola?
The market turmoil comes amidst a bumper crop of IPOs. According to Renaissance Capital, 316 companies have filed to go public so far this year, compared to 256 in all of 2013.
Heymann and other investors are counseling against panic. They say the recent market dive is unlikely to be a harbinger of a larger collapse, and that a healthy dose of skepticism keeps bubbles from forming. Some investors even use the market turmoil to remind entrepreneurs to make sure their companies are in sound shape.
You guys can be in denial if you want.
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Investors noted that an IPO is an expensive and potentially distracting challenge.
What? The Globe has been gu$hing about them!
Companies must satisfy regulatory requirements, carefully manage shareholder expectations, and spend time on the road schmoozing investment bankers and potential investors. The further along a company is in that process, the more likely it is to complete an IPO, whatever the market conditions.
For pre-IPO companies that decide to wait, the delays may be especially frustrating because market volatility is often triggered by remote events that have little bearing on their business. “If you’re the CEO of a private tech company, you can neither control those things or let yourself get too distracted by them,’’ Bussgang said.
Interesting, because I was told the US economy is pretty much insulated from all that!
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Also see: There is Nothing to Fear But the Lack of Fear
I don't know whether to be afraid of being afraid or afraid of not being afraid or afraid of being afraid of not being afraid or not being afraid of being afraid of not being afraid.
Aaaaaah, the hell with the fear, f*** it!
