Even the Most Educated Workers Have Declining Wages

Shortly after the stock market rebounded from the depths of the financial crisis, Time magazine named Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as its 2009 Person of the Year for the aggressive interventions he took to presumably prevent a second Great Depression. Bernanke used his position at the Fed to blast trillions of newly printed dollars into the financial system to shore up almost every aspect of the nation's financial system. Investors were bailed out, banks were bailed out, but that avalanche of money somehow didn't make its way into worker wages – arguably the most important measure of all.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, in data from 2007-2014 all workers except those with advanced degrees actually lost ground in inflation adjusted ("real") terms, and even those with advanced degrees didn't experience any wage gains – they just didn't lose ground like everyone else!

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Another Tornado Record's in Sight for U.S. as Thunderstorms Boom

Bloomberg by Brian K Sullivan Another wave of tornado-spawning thunderstorms is set to rip across the Great Plains and South this week, putting the U.S. within reach of a record year for life-threatening twisters. Severe storms will drench a swath of the country from Texas to Mississippi over the next five days, according to the U.S. Storm Prediction Center. Through Thursday, 369 tornadoes have been reported across the country, the most in five years and more than double the normal number of sightings. An active jet stream and unusually balmy weather are to blame for the burst of deadly tornado activity, the storm prediction center said. Strong winds have dragged storms into the warm, humid air that’s blanketed the eastern half of the nation, creating conditions ripe for a weather phenomenon that leads to at least $400 million in damage a year in the U.S. “We have a severe threat starting today and continuing for each of the next five days through at least Monday

Womack Weekly Commentary: September 18, 2017

Womack Weekly Commentary September 18, 2017 The Markets “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is.” Yogi Berra was talking about baseball, but the concept also applies to diversification, according to the GMO White Paper, The S&P 500: Just Say No . From the title, you might think the authors – Matt Kadnar and James Montier – don’t like U.S. stocks. They do: “Being a U.S. equity investor over the past several years has felt glorious. The S&P 500 has trounced the competition provided by other major developed and emerging equity markets. Over the last 7 years, the S&P is up 173 percent (15 percent annualized in nominal terms) versus MSCI EAFE (in USD terms), which is up 71 percent (8 percent annualized), and poor MSCI Emerging, which is up only 30 percent (4 percent annualized). Every dollar invested in the S&P has compounded into $2.72 versus MSCI EAFE’s $1.70 and MSCI Emerging’s $1.30.” The au

Markets Were Rattled Last Week

The market hates surprises, especially when the surprise comes from a central bank. Last week, the European Central Bank (ECB) unexpectedly reversed course and took a more accommodative stance on monetary policy in an effort to encourage stronger European economic growth. Tom Fairless of Barron’s explained: “Officials are seeking to shore up an economy that has been rattled by shocks ranging from a slowdown in China to mass protests in France and bottlenecks in Germany’s crucial auto industry. They are threading a careful path between providing sufficient support for the region’s softening economy while avoiding any appearance of panic, which could ricochet through financial markets.” The Eurozone isn’t the only region feeling the pinch of weaker economic growth. China’s exports were down more than 20 percent in February, reported Investing.com . Analysts had expected a decline of about 5 percent. Concerns about the health of China’s economy have been growing since the p

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