Mike & Co. — In half an hour, the BLS jobs report for February is due to be released. If you’d like an update or have any questions, please let me know. Meanwhile, amid the most fractious campaign in recent history comes an initiative in Congress that sounds, well, incongruous with the cacophany. A broad …
Mike & Co. — I hope everyone’s had a chance to reflect on the magnitude of Tuesday’s hard fought primary wins — with gratitude to those who toiled in the field. On Sunday night, the campaign debate turns to Flint, Michigan — to the town and the issues it has come to symbolize. The town’s …
Mike & Co. This has been a busy week in Washington especially on the tax front, with more to follow. We’ve already seen a number of hearings and developments on the most salient current tax bills and related proposals in the last two days, which are itemized and vetted for viability below. Tomorrow, an assessment of which …
Mike and Co. – The soap opera that is the federal budget making process saw sone minor prima donna pratfalls this week. Nothing remotely on the scale of blocking the confirmation of a Supreme Justice. But as Senate Budget’s ranking member Sen. Cardin warned at a breakfast today, you can forget regular order on the budget — …
Mike & Co. – One week ago, the House passed a bill that could alter and perhaps ease the way state and local infrastructure is financed in the capital markets, when HR.2209, a bill to “require the appropriate Federal banking agencies to treat certain municipal obligations as level 2A liquid assets, and for other purposes” was adopted by the House with …
Mike & Co. — The newly-installed the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank and former Special Investigator overseeing the TARP program came to town yesterday advocating drastic action to head off a financial sector systemic risk crisis, calling for the nation’s biggest banks to be broken up. His speech, delivered at Brookings, got noticed, with lengthy coverage in the NYT, WSJ, …
Mike & Co. — A national holiday, a snowstorm, and a congressional recess stilled DC yesterday and a quiet week is expected. It gives us a chance to have a look at some developments thus far this year that have flown below the radar. Today’s item is the one bill on its way to the President’s desk …
Mike & Co. — One thing the two parties agree is that international tax reform is a fiscally necessary issue to take up — that Uncle Sam is leaving hundreds of billions of dollars on the table overseas annually. But they would also generally agree that it is not going to get done this …
Mike & Co. — The Chair of the Federal Reserve went before House Financial Services to provide a report on the nation’s economic condition, a kind of bi-annual checkup. No news was made, no fireworks went off and no market mood swings occurred. As for the Fed’s next move, it’s wait-and-see a little while longer. …
Mike & Co. — Today, President Obama submitted his eighth and final budget proposal to Congress. It tops the $4 trillion mark for the first time. Despite the historical tendency for lame duck presidential budgets to be treated as scrap paper — this one won’t even be accorded the courtesy of a hearing in House …
