As the country struggles with this vicious recession, we look for ways to rejuvenate the economy and reverse the downturn.

What end recessions are the following:

First, producing and saving, as opposed to spending and borrowing.

Second, economic stimulus in the form of tax cuts and rebates, which are truly...

I am concerned with the budget deficit and the many spending initiatives now being floated around Washington, DC.

Recently, the U.S. Conference of Mayors went to Capitol Hill to ask for a handout, or as they put it: "A total of 11,391 infrastructure projects are 'ready to go'...at a cost...

The Securities and Exchange Commission should be closed down, pronto. It should not exist.

This is not because Wall Street does not need regulation. Heaven knows it does. And this is not because the people working at the SEC are not good people, because I believe they are. Alas, they...

It is natural for investors to be concerned when the market is in "bear mode" and their portfolio declines. Fear of further declines and volatility make investors skittish, and the instinctive reaction is to pull money out of the market, trying to stem the losses.

It might help to get...

According to data by Davis Advisors Funds examining the S&P 500 returns in the 15 years span between 1993 and 2007, the patient investor who remained invested and did not try to time the market received an average annualized return of 10.5% per year. The investor who missed just the...

So far we have the $700 billion bank bailout, another $700 billion "stimulus package" proposed by President Elect Obama, and the $800 billion fund Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has at his discretion, trying to jolt consumers into buying again.

These come on top of the $200 billion to keep...

We are in a bear market caused by the excess in residential real estate, the deleveraging of the global financial system and a major credit crunch. But the issue we are faced with today is shortage of confidence, not shortage of capital.

Seeing the news headlines, clearly people are...

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson made some disastrous decisions that had major unintended consequences.

One of those was the decision to nationalize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Once the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, supposedly preemptively, shareholders of every other financial company that perhaps needed capital were left...

Treasury Secretary Paulson is clearly improvising.

According to the Washington Post, at the time that Lehman Brothers was teetering on the verge of collapse, Secretary Paulson warned of the dangers of repeatedly offering government guarantees to companies. Just three days before Lehman failed, Paulson reinforced the point, telling reporters...

In 1950, when GM signed a contract with the UAW, the Big Three's share of America's domestic auto market was about 95 percent. The economies of Japan and Germany were still ravaged by World War II and were not a threat. The Big Three and their workers' union were certain...

In the last few months, we have seen the prices of commodities dropping precipitously. Oil dropped from $150 to $60, Gold dropped from $1,000 an ounce to $750, Copper fell from about $8,900 a metric ton to $3,800, and so on. The mass deleveraging occurring in our economy at the...

I believe President Elect Barack Obama will govern as a centrist. He will have no choice, given the challenges the country is facing and the current economic and fiscal backdrop. He'd like to be bold, with big ideas and big changes. But economists say he will face a possible $750...

Warren Buffett likes to say: "The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs."

Have you noticed our politicians so often do exactly the wrong thing? They mean well, but in their haste to propitiate...

I do not believe that we are at the bottom of this economic cycle and that things will only be rosy from here. Our economy is suffering, and for good reason. Folly and greed reigned supreme for a while, and now the bill is due, and it includes a freezing...

Right now the old adage Cash is King is one of the worst pieces of advice you can get.

The US is printing hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the financial system. Despite the deflationary pressure that the massive de-leveraging creates, this new and abundant liquidity will...

Our money supply has recently slowed to a screeching halt. That is exacerbating our problems and heightening the credit crunch. The faster we spend, the more money there is available in the economy. Money we put under the proverbial mattress is non existent capital as far as the economy is...

With no bloodshed, with not one shot fired, America just completed the biggest heist in history.

For years, Americans did not save. We were busy consuming, buying homes, cars and electronic gadgets. The Chinese, Japanese, Indians and Koreans worked hard and saved their incomes. They funneled their savings into...

Too many pundits compare our current tribulations to the Great Depression.

Since May, the stock market has cratered, losing 4,500 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (as of Friday). All five of America's investment banks -- Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley --...

In a recent blog I discussed the reasons for the credit mess we are in. I want to now focus on the companies that failed and triggered this panic wave. Let's start with the Government Sponsored Entities, the GSE's, namely Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those firms were chartered by...

The credit crisis that began in 2007 and triggered the current turmoil is unique in its ferocity, especially because so many large companies are experiencing unprecedented credit and liquidity problems. This all started with steep declines in home prices that decimated the value of mortgage collateral held by many banks...