Alan Young

Solar: The Clouds May Be Parting

I'll be glad to sing along with you, Guy--this movie was a childhood favorite of mine, too. But I'm not so sure about investing with you. There's still a lot of political risk in solar stocks, unless you can see exactly how much their business depends on various government subsidies.

High Yield Telecom Stocks Are Calling

IWA is not a credible choice, as noted above. But CTL may be. I didn't know it was in the $SPX. And there's a lot of institutional buying. I will be watching it; thanks for the idea.

California Issuing

California's credit-worthiness is maintained at the expense of having any future, as infrastructure and education are sacrificed to service the debt. What we need is to completely revamp the political system, which currently prevents any reasonable steps toward government solvency with its combination of prohibitions on reliable state AND LOCAL revenue measures and mandatory spending. It would be better to dissolve the state entirely than to try to muddle through this mess for another 10 years. Maybe a constitutional convention could repair the system, but even that is dubious.

Finding the Most Undervalued Green Energy Company

Future earnings estimates are notoriously unreliable. To use this as the ONLY metric of value is folly.

Which Green Stocks Will Be the Last Standing?

Gee, Mark, I hope the headline wasn't your idea--your message is just the opposite, isn't it? I'd like to know if there are any buy-and-hold-worthy green stocks, but here you are all about short-term trade.

An animated game show (video, 2:10) featuring some very discouraged workers helps show why the headline unemployment figures are always a little sunnier than reality. (via)

Nice little video; tells the story as it is.

@Hyper: you "well known fact" is complete nonsense. By your definition, there was no poverty before 1917, when Socialism first became a real political factor. A 3-year-old has better reasoning power than this.

Understanding the Dollar's Reversal: Who Will Feel the Pain?

One day spike, and you're talking about reversing a year-long trend? That's a bit premature.

Reappointing Bernanke

I agree, especially with the last sentence <shudder>.

Reserve Currency: There Can Be Only One

1929 doesn't tell us much. Now banking all over the world is instantaneous, so currency behaves a bit differently.

Still, I think it could be very instructive to ignore the (inapt) headline here, and contemplate possible ways for world finance to function with ambiguity. There's no absolute value, anyway; if everything is relative, why only one reserve?

The Betting Line on Bernanke

No bet. An unknown candidate would have to be vetted, which would be tedious and politically risky. Of the known competitors, no one has Ben's placid telegenic appearance, which is so reassuring in times of crisis.

Besides, mastery of "Great Depression avoidance strategies" is about the best qualification you could ask for these days. Other than actually giving a damn about what happens to America outside a small circle of plutocrats, and you can hardly expect to find that quality in anyone who can talk Banking convincingly with millionaire Senators.

Bunning vs. Bernanke

Bernanke works only for the too-rich-to-care class, of which 95% of the Senate are either members or indentured servants. He also has the advantage of looking good on TV (unlike Geithner, for example). There's nothing that could threaten his job.

The Right Reform for the Fed

Is the problem that the Fed is not "independent" of political interests, or that it has conflicts of interest? Being free from congressional influence doesn't help, if it acts as if its mission is to protect Vampire Squid et al.

Bernanke's job is secure, neither because he does it so well, nor because he's a political toady, but because he has such an outstanding TV presence and calming demeanor. If Geithner or Summers had his job, they would drive us crazy with worry.

China Provides a Tailwind for Wind Energy ETFs

Funny "tailwind" that shows a 10-week downtrend. If you'd posted this article 6 months ago, it would have been useful.

Is a Deficit-Neutral Stimulus Possible?

A deficit-neutral stimulus would take funds away from programs that low stimulus value and reallocate them.

War has low stimulus value, since most of the spending is on materials and overseas support services, not on domestic goods and labor. So, with the escalation in Afghanistan, Obama is now moving in exactly the wrong direction.

Can the Federal Budget Be Balanced?

Imagine my surprise: there are actually some very good ideas here. I especially agree with the cuts in the military and agriculture subsidies.

Entitlement programs are more difficult. Social Security is based on the premise that everyone pays and everyone benefits; you are supposed to be collecting on your own investment, not supporting other people. That's how the program was sold by FDR. Repackaging it as a wealth-redistribution plan would be politically problematical: even if it passed, there would then be an influential constituency opposed to funding it at all.

Other discretionary programs do not necessarily become more efficient when they are less-funded. Regulation of industries and crime control, for example, cannot be done efficiently unless you have resources at least equal to those of your targets.

Finally, why not add taxes? Bush cut taxes on the rich, and most of that money went into buying more assets, driving up prices and making them richer without a corresponding social benefit.