Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Bank Information Website

I was just searching through Google and came across this website http://www.bankregdata.com/main.asp It is definitely worth a look, some great information available. I am not sure about the accuracy, but it would be a great starting point for any analysis. 

The Weekly Spot Rate

Alan Blinder the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve wrote a great article in the WSJ about the Carbon Tax idea. This struck me as a great way to implement a new tax, regardless of what it is. Blinder's plan is to approve the tax legislation and tier the tax up over time, but the part I really like is to start at a 0% tax rate. This is a great way, as Blinder point out, to allow business to see where rates will go in the long term and give them time to adjust. Below is a link to the article. 

Bloomberg Radio had an interview with Peter Schaffrik, head of Euro fixed income strategy for RBC capital markets in London, on February 7th, 2011. In this interview Schaffrik spoke about 2 kinds of inflation: internal and external. He defined internal inflation as economic overheating and external inflation as rising commodity prices. As can be seen, one form is controllable by the state and the other is not. I though that this was a great insight, as all too often we find people focusing on inflation, as they should, but they do not separate inflation into the controllable and non-controllable forms. Something to keep in mind when we think about inflation and deflation for that matter. 



The Carbon Tax Miracle Cure by Alan Blinder