Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

U.S. Congress: Focus on Economy NOT Political Obstruction

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Economic data released today on the Chicago PMI (Purchasing Manager’s Index) shows how much the U.S. economy is urgently in need of fiscal stimulation.

With barely a whimper above the 50 expansion level, the health of its economy is set to drop into contraction territory soon (as it did in 2009 following the depressed signals forecast by similar low numbers produced in 2007/08), unless Congress begins to cooperate and focus on real issues that support its claims of being number one in the world arena when it comes to economic (and military) might, instead of playing economically dangerous political games in unnecessarily obstructing the advancement of the new Trump administration, cabinet confirmations, and economic and security agendas.

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Inaugural Thoughts

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It may seem hard to believe, but this is going to be the last full week of Obama’s presidency. After eight years (long, horrible years for the bearish set), Obama’s tenure in the White House is nearing an end. His excellency President Twitter will be sworn in (placing his hand, I suppose, on The Art of the Deal) in just a couple of Fridays. There are very few guarantees in life, but I’m pretty sure of this: this is going to be a verrrrrrrry interesting administration.

Anyway, since Trump’s inauguration is coming up, I thought I’d reflect a bit on what happened in the equity markets when Obama came into office. It’s kind of interesting (I’ve also featured two images of Obama, showing how much these two terms have aged the man).

0108-obama

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