MEMBER SIGN IN
Not a member? Become one today!
         iBerkshires     Berkshire Chamber     Berkshire Community College     City of Pittsfield    
Search
Home About Archives RSS Feed
@theMarket: Political Posturing Ahead
By Bill Schmick,
05:11PM / Friday, July 26, 2013

The markets have spent most of this year focusing on concrete things like the economy, jobs, the Fed's stimulus program and corporate earnings. However, we are entering that time of year when our dysfunctional political parties may once again roil the markets in an attempt to justify their miserable existence.

It is no accident that President Barack Obama took to the road this week with proposals for additional federal spending to boost the economy. After heaping all the blame on the Republican House for blocking his middle-class economic agenda, he introduced what appears to be a re-hash of old proposals that have been shot down repeatedly by the Republicans. What's the

0 Comments
Read More >>

The Independent Investor: Food Stamps & the Farm Bill
By Bill Schmick,
03:56PM / Thursday, July 25, 2013

The decision by Congress to pass a version of the new farm bill that excludes the food stamp program caused a fair amount of concern throughout America last week. Unless a compromise is reached with the Senate by September, it will mean that a lot of people, especially children, are going to go hungry in the months ahead.

Food stamps, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), have been around in some form or another since the Great Depression. Its basic purpose is to help distribute food to the needy amid calamitous times such as widespread unemployment and economic dislocation. It became part of the farm bill back in the 1970s through political

0 Comments
Read More >>

@theMarket: Nothing's Simple
By Bill Schmick,
11:37AM / Monday, July 22, 2013
The biggest risk to the markets in the past week was Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony before Congress. Despite worries that he would say something that would send the markets into a tail spin, he did nothing of the sort. When it comes to the Fed, Wall Street may be its own worst enemy, and here's why.   Investors, for the most part, have an irritating habit of breaking down the most complicated of issues into something naively simple. Most end up something like this: if X occurred, then Y will happen. Usually, these simplistic conclusions are way off base. Nonetheless, the markets trade up and down, sometimes violently, on the basis of these naive outcomes. Take

0 Comments
Read More >>

@theMarket: Do you believe?
By Bill Schmick,
11:23AM / Tuesday, July 16, 2013
It may well be the most-hated stock market rally in recent history. Every time we hit a new high, as we did this past week, investors brace for the next pull back. When the declines do occur however, they are shallow and soon recover. What is that telling you?   Let's look at recent history. The stock market has been climbing steadily since November, shortly after President Obama was re-elected. Each month since then the markets have made impressive gains followed by short, shallow declines. Wall Street calls that a stair-step rally. Investors have purchased equities on every dip including the last "Taper" sell-off in May through June engineered by the

0 Comments
Read More >>

The Independent Investor: Higher Education Just Got More Expensive
By Bill Schmick,
01:36PM / Friday, July 12, 2013
More than 7 million students and their families depend on Stafford Loans, a federally subsidized loans program, to help them get through college. Barring an eleventh hour compromise, it looks like the interest rates on those loans will double costing new students $1,000 more to fund their educations.   The initiative to raise interest rates on these student loans from 3.4 to 6.8 percent was spawned by the GOP-controlled House and passed July 1. Those politicians, who have continued to pursue their bankrupt austerity agenda, argue that, at most, the increase will cost new students $20 extra per month. Given that the vast majority of these same officials make well over

0 Comments
Read More >>

Pittsfield.com is owned and operated by: Boxcar Media 106 Main Sreet, P.O. Box 1787 North Adams, MA 01247 -- T. 413-663-3384 F.413-663-3615
© 2008 Boxcar Media LLC - All rights reserved