FYI:
Regards,
Ted
December 1, 2016
Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber,
Much has been written since the presidential election about the new world political order. As Taegan Goddard, founder and Publisher of the influential political website, Political Wire old me this morning Donald Trump upended both the Democratic and Republican parties with his unconventional social media campaign and in the process became the first “independent” elected President. Goddard has shared his analysis of Trump’s groundbreaking campaign with us, which will be available on our website www.wealthtrack.com this weekend and to premium subscribers.
Post-election, Trump is continuing his independent political course by continuing to speak, travel and take presidential like actions while President Obama is still in office. Trump is a master at creating his own bully pulpit and he is using it.
Carrier Corporation, a division of United Technologies is a case in point. The President-elect and his Vice President-elect, Mike Pence held a press conference at the air conditioner and heating equipment manufacturer and announced the company would keep roughly one-third of the jobs slated to go to Mexico in Indiana instead, in exchange for an estimated $7 million in tax breaks. As The Wall Street Journal points out other companies are now having second thoughts about moving jobs overseas.
This is the final weekend of pledge season on Public Television which means that WEALTHTRACK may not be airing on your local station. As a result we are revisiting a recent program with the macro theme that we are living in turbulent economic times.
As the latest edition of the classic, Manias, Panics, and Crashes puts it: “The years since the early 1970’s are unprecedented in terms of the large changes in the day-to-day and month-to month prices of commodities, currencies, bonds, stocks, and real estate relative to their long- run average prices”.
Also unprecedented in recent history are the 40 some odd banking crises that have occurred around the world in the last three plus decades. And again, according to Manias, Panics, and Crashes, they have tended to come in waves.
The first wave was in the early 1980s, with the $800 billion dollar default of U.S. dollar-denominated debt by Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and ten other Developing countries. The early 1990s saw a second wave, engulfing Japan and two Nordic countries, Finland and Sweden. The third wave identified began in mid-1997, the Asian financial crisis that started with Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, and spread to affect South Korea, Russia, Brazil and Argentina. The fourth wave was the most recent, the Great Recession, which began with the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant government sponsored mortgage lenders, followed by the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
On this week’s show, we are turning our attention to where crises might be developing now and how to invest in the meantime. We are continuing our conversation with noted economist Robert Aliber, Emeritus Professor of International Economics and Finance at the University of Chicago Business School, the editor of the last three editions of Manias, Panics, and Crashes, and a prolific author in his own right on international finance, as well as the author of two personal finance books titled Your Money and Your Life.
We’ll also be joined by Nick Sargen, Chief Economist and Senior Investment Advisor at Fort Washington Investment Advisors, who has had similar roles at major financial institutions over the years as well as positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the U.S. Treasury department. Sargen’s new book is Global Shocks: An Investment Guide for Turbulent Markets.
Aliber and Sargen will share their insights about the financial trouble spots they see developing now, and how to protect our portfolios against them.
As always, if you miss the show on Public Television, you can watch it at your convenience on our website. You’ll also find my weekly Action Points there, plus our guests’ “One Investment” ideas.
We look forward to resuming our regularly scheduled programming next week. Until then, have a great weekend and make the week ahead a profitable and a productive one.
Best regards,
Consuelo
