“I have nothing against Jonathan Ferro but Katy Greifeld is very easy on the eyes.”
That appears to be a requisite for women working at the network. Have always wondered if Mike does the screening himself … ?
Vonnie Quinn is one of my favorites for all around personality and talent. For whatever reason she no longer appears daytimes, but occasionally surfaces from NY on their late night lineup.
Dani Burger seemed to drop into their post-midnight broadcasts a few months back from out of nowhere. Extremely attractive, knowledgeable and gifted overall - but young and rough around the edges as a broadcaster. Been fun watching her grow professionally.
Photo Album

Jan 20, 2023 Episode

As we move into 2023, the best advice for investors remains the same – “Don’t fight the Fed.” The Federal Reserve is being clear about its intentions to continue raising short-term interest rates and tapering its bond purchases until it reaches its target of bringing inflation down to 2%.
Richard Clarida, a highly respected expert in Fed policy and Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve under Chairman Jerome Powell, will be discussing these topics and more in this episode.

20 Jan, 2023:

Wow. .... So..... This is a regional BANK chain. Granted, it serves a not-so-very-populated area in Northern Vermont. But $103M market-cap would be a tiny, microcap entity, in corporate terms. I'd never have thought a bank could operate that way, at that scale, in this day and age! Thanks for the responses.

Check out the market cap. Around $103 M doesn’t even put it in small-cap territory. Very small companies’ stocks tend to be both speculative and volatile.
The numbers: Typical market capitalizations
From the above: “Companies are typically divided according to market capitalization: large-cap ($10 billion or more), mid-cap ($2 billion to $10 billion), and small-cap ($300 million to $2 billion).”

Nope, $31T is the bill amassed when everyone does not pay their fair share.

Bingo!

Check the volume of its trades. Zero shares most days; others a couple of hundred; occasionally a couple thousand. Out of 5.42M shares; 5.21M public float. No wonder some trades greatly affect the price.

Important to remember the intent of why legislation forcing debt limits was created in the first place.
The intent was to give the Treasury more flexibility, not to constrain the Treasury or Congress.
As noted in the first line of Congressional Research Service's report The Debt Limit: History and Recent Increases, "Congress has always restricted federal debt."
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL31967
For more than half of the United States' existence, Congress restricted the federal debt by allowing no borrowing except as explicitly authorized. For example, Congress authorized the issuing of three series of 50 year bonds (2% 1906, 2% 1908, 3% 1911) for the specific purpose of building the Panama Canal.
https://www.theherbstmancollection.com/panama-canal-loan
Not only was borrowing restricted to explicitly authorized debt instruments, but usually the debt could not be rolled over. When Congress authorized the issuance of a bond, it did not authorize issuing a subsequent bond to pay for the first when it matured.
Over time, Congress gradually changed how the federal government borrowed money. It delegated micromanging of the debt to the Treasury. Instead of Congress deciding how many bonds would be issued at what rates and at what maturities, this task was handed over to the Treasury. Congress also transitioned from borrowing individual amounts for specific purposes to setting a single aggregate borrowing limit that among other things enabled the rolling over of debt.
In 1917, attached to the Second Liberty Bond Act, was a statement that read in part:

It is obvious that the orderly and economic management of the public debt requires that the Treasury should have complete freedom in determining the character of securities to be issued and should not be confronted with any arbitrary limitation.

https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/SRpt71-1836.pdf
Congress still set a limit on the amount that the Treasury could borrow, but gave the Treasury free rein on the terms of the debt instruments. At the time, Congress set separate limits on different types of securities. Finally, in 1939 Congress created a single debt ceiling, giving Treasury even greater flexibility in determining the form as well as the terms of debt instruments.
On debt before 1939, see:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5866584/ (easier, shorter)
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w21799/w21799.pdf
https://www.imf.org/external/np/seminars/eng/2015/goode/pdf/sargentpaper.pdf
(by same authors, slightly different material)

Check out the 1-month chart.
https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/cmtv?qsearchterm=cmtv
I still don't own it, but continue to track it. I note an 8+ percent drop in a single DAY? But maybe I'm reading it wrong? The posted statistic on that day told me so, though. So, even if I'm misreading the chart, the reported numbers don't lie, anyhow. Charts make my head hurt.

update:
Share class conversion:
https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1587982/000139834422018766/fp0079713_497-ixbrl.htm

Yes Capitalism always provides competitve advantage (and leverage) to size. Thats why large corporations always want to be #1 or #2 in their industry or they exit altogether.

I don’t see chimps or lizards trading credit default swaps. The idea that capitalism or communism or any “ism” is natural and therefore unalterable or unimprovable like air or gravity is a toxic one. They are human inventions that were made during certain points in human history and they can be altered, improved upon or even unmade today. Historical context matters and economic and government systems that worked 100 years ago for humanity may not be ideal in 2023 or 2123.
What I find amusing about the $31 trillion in debt is who are the largest owners of that debt? The wealthy. Instead of taxing them appropriately for government services we are actually paying them interest to help them become wealthier. It makes sense they complain about the size of the debt as they worry we won’t be able to pay them back during a default or they’ll lose money because the inflation rate will exceed their debt’s interest rate. But we wouldn’t have to borrow so much in the first place if we taxed them appropriately, which, of course, they also don’t want and complain about.
The ideal situation for the wealthy is for the U.S. to cut government services while still paying them the interest on the debt that was originally issued to pay for those services. The borrowers of the debt—the American people—get less or, preferably, nothing in the form of services, while the creditors/investors still get paid. Keep their taxes low but the interest on their investments as secure as possible.
I should add that the above scenario is only ideal for the wealthy in the short-term but not the long. If you cut all government services, the ordinary folk start to get angry after a while about pesky problems like inequality, starvation and declining life expectancy. Then the torches and pitchforks come out. Enlightened rich folk believe in taxation and government services as a self-preservation measure. Dalio at least understands inequality is a problem. We need our bread and circuses.

Nope, $31T is the bill amassed when everyone does not pay their fair share.

If capitalism was an invention, then I guess $31T in debt derived from capitalism was an invention also?

Crypto firm Genesis has filed for bankruptcy. It is part of DCG that also owns the news arm CoinDesk.
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/01/20/genesis-global-files-for-bankruptcy-protection/
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/20/crypto-lender-genesis-trading-files-for-bankruptcy-barry-silbert-digital-currency-group.html

I don't understand why the Democrats didn't lift the debt ceiling last month when they still controlled all three branches of government? It takes a simple majority in both House and Senate and the signature of the President to do so.
They could have easily done it before December 31, 2022.
Not trying to be partisan, but were they playing politics and not thinking of what's good for the country? What am I missing?
Fred

Keystone Cops, eh?

I don't understand why the Democrats didn't lift the debt ceiling last month when they still controlled all three branches of government? It takes a simple majority in both House and Senate and the signature of the President to do so.
They could have easily done it before December 31, 2022.
Not trying to be partisan, but were they playing politics and not thinking of what's good for the country? What am I missing?
Fred

@davidrmoran I don't quite get the debt-to-GDP fixation. To me, as a country matures as first a developing, then a developed nation, it makes sense that GDP slows and more of its citizens financial wherewithal is in assets like stocks, bonds and real estate as opposed to income from GDP production. Developed nations are starting from a high GDP production base--the law of large numbers applies to their growth--and they generally have older populations who are less productive as they retire. The older populations stem from better healthcare as well as the fact that education comes with development and women have less children as a result. Thus, the workforce ages and GDP growth slows. So, I don't understand why the debt-to-GDP ratio is so significant when the wealthiest Americans have so much accumulated non-GDP producing wealth that is largely untaxed or taxed at a much lower rate than income. In short, America needs a real wealth tax to pay down its debt. Yet there are obvious political problems with getting such a tax passed: https://npr.org/2021/11/13/1054711913/progressives-wealth-tax-super-rich-elon-musk-jeff-bezos What could work is some sort of tax treaty that bars any sort of tax shelters between trading partners globally so there can be no skipping town once a wealth tax is imposed.

@FD1000 - I don’t visit other boards. MFO is the best by far.
So if you want to claim credit here for predictions you made months earlier it seems only reasonable that you also post those predictions here at the time you make them.

I left that other board after a short period, myself: censorship.

@FD1000 - I don’t visit other boards. MFO is the best by far.
So if you want to claim credit here for predictions you made months earlier it seems only reasonable that you also post those predictions here at the time you make them.
And the MFO post you just put up is nearly 3 years old (February 2020).