The Sunshine Report

Category Archive: Business Environment

1. Supply-Side Economics Isn’t The Answer For Today’s Problems

   0 Post on April 8, 2009

   There is a time and a place for supply-side eco­nom­ics but this is nei­ther. Supply-side advo­cates seem to be fol­low­ing the eco­nomic “chicken soup the­ory”; tax cuts and less reg­u­la­tion are like chicken soup, talk­ing about chicken soup makes every­one feel bet­ter and if actu­ally pre­scribed prob­a­bly won’t make things worse either. But, the prob­lem […] [read full story]

   Posted in: Bush Administration, Business Environment, economy, Finance, Fiscal Policy, Politics, Public Policy, REGULATION

2. Small Business Lending Needs Help; A Forbes Article On How Washington Can Help

   0 Post on March 12, 2009

   Yes­ter­day Forbes pub­lished an arti­cle that I wrote on small busi­ness lend­ing and what Wash­ing­ton can do to help. Click here to jump to Forbes and read the arti­cle. [read full story]

   Posted in: Bond Insurance, Business Environment, Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, Credit Crisis, economy, Finance, Forbes, Politics, Public Policy, SBA, Small Business Lending, Tax policy

3. Create Jobs Quickly By Capitalizing Small Business Lenders By Robert Blum

   0 Post on February 26, 2009

   In my post­ing last Fri­day with Mark Sun­shine, TARP Isn’t Work­ing For Small Busi­nesses; Two Sim­ple Solu­tions For Small Busi­ness Lend­ing, we dis­cussed the severe fund­ing stresses being faced by small and medium sized busi­ness enter­prises (“SMEs”). Unfor­tu­nately, most of the gov­ern­ment aid announced to date does not help in deploy­ing cap­i­tal to SMEs any […] [read full story]

   Posted in: Business Environment, Credit Crisis, economy, Finance, Guest Blog, Politics, Public Policy, Robert Blum, Small Business Lending

4. Let’s Do The Time Warp Again; Advocates of a 4.5% Mortgage Rate Must Have Come From Another Time And Place

   2 Post on February 8, 2009

   When I hear peo­ple talk about the gov­ern­ment essen­tially man­dat­ing that banks and Fred­die Mac and Fan­nie Mae orig­i­nate 4.5% 30 year fixed mort­gages I think of the Rocky Hor­ror Pic­ture Show and The Time Warp. Mem­bers of Con­gress and econ­o­mists who are push­ing under­priced mort­gages must be from another time and place oth­er­wise they […] [read full story]

   Posted in: BANKS, Bush Administration, Business Environment, Credit Crisis, economy, Fannie Mae, Finance, Freddie Mac, housing crisis, Mortgage, Obama, Politics, Public Policy, REGULATION

5. 10 Simple Uber-rich Investment Rules

   0 Post on December 14, 2008

   I didn’t think that the uber-rich needed my advice until the last few days. After all, they are the uber-rich and I am one of the “lit­tle peo­ple”. I fig­ured they knew more than me and it was from their spe­cial knowl­edge that they got their uber-status. But after the last few days I believe […] [read full story]

   Posted in: Business Environment, economy, Finance, Investments, Madoff, Petters

6. CPI Indicates" rel="bookmark">Money Supply and Economic Data Weekly Watch – Deflation Is Worse Than CPI Indicates

   0 Post on November 24, 2008

   Last week’s eco­nomic data is under­es­ti­mat­ing defla­tion. On Wednes­day the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics (“BLS”) announced that the con­sumer price index (“CPI”) declined by 1.0% in Octo­ber which was the biggest sin­gle one month reported decline since before World War II. Broad based defla­tion exac­er­bates the already severe credit cri­sis and increases cash hoard­ing by […] [read full story]

   Posted in: BANKS, BLS, Business Environment, CPI, Credit Crisis, Deflation, Economic Statistics, economy, Federal Funds Rate, Federal Reserve, Finance, Fiscal Policy, GDP, Inflation, Liquidity Trap, M2, monetary policy, Money Supply

7. Why Hasn’t Treasury Worked Out A Program For Resolution of Non-Bank Financial Institutions?

   0 Post on November 14, 2008

   I don’t under­stand why Trea­sury hasn’t put in place a com­pre­hen­sive plan for the res­o­lu­tion of failed non-bank finan­cial insti­tu­tions. Paul­son and Bernanke said that they were work­ing on a pro­posal after the Bear Stearns col­lapse and that a frame­work for res­o­lu­tion of non-bank finan­cial fail­ures was needed imme­di­ately. But 8 months later the world […] [read full story]

   Posted in: BANKS, Bernanke, Business Environment, Credit Crisis, Economic Statistics, economy, Finance, Paulson, Politics, Regulatory Reform, Willem Buiter

8. Ten reasons why I am glad to be doing business in America

   1 Post on October 12, 2008

   I am glad to be doing busi­ness in the U.S. and I think that the U.S. is going to emerge from the cur­rent cri­sis stronger and more dom­i­nant than ever before. David Leon­hardt wrote today in the New York Times that the U.S. is “a power that may not stay so super”. I dis­agree. A […] [read full story]

   Posted in: Business Environment, Confidence, David Leonhardt, economy, Finance, Law, New York Times, UNITED STATES