Bruce Krasting's Blog

Bkrasting [at] gmail [dot] com ()

I worked on Wall Street for twenty five years. This blog is my take on the financial issues of the day. I was an FX trader during the early days of the 'snake' and the EMS. Derivatives on currencies were new then. I was part of that. That was with Citi. Later I worked for Drexel and got to understand a bit about balance sheet structure and corporate bonds from Mike Milken. I was involved with a Macro hedge fund later. That worked out all right, but it is not an easy road. There was one tough week and I thought, "Maybe I should do something else for a year or two." That was fifteen years ago. I love the markets. How they weave together. For twenty five years I woke up thinking, "What am I going to do today to make some money in the market". I don't do that any longer. But I miss it.

The Girl Child Arrives

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It was just seven months ago that the strongest El Nino in recorded history was set. The weather folks and their computers were anticipating that the Pacific Ocean would revert to a neutral status (+/- 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit). Now it looks like a full bore La Nina is in the immediate future...

It’s Official – Biggest Nino Ever – Killer La Nina to Follow

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This morning NOAA released its data for the Pacific Ocean temperatures for the week of November 9th. We hit a record – the current El Nino is the strongest in recorded history. Before 2015 the largest recorded weekly reading of El Nino occurred during the week of November 26 in 1997. We passed...

California – A Deluge Followed by Mega Drought?

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Both NOAA and the Australian Meteorologists issued El Nino updates in the past 24 hours. The weekly numbers that were released confirm that an historic event is...

Social Security Versus CBO – Who Do You Trust?

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The 2014 Social Security report to Congress is finally out. The report was released four-months later than permitted by law; this is the sixth year in a row that the Report has been late. The word ‘sloppy’ comes to mind; Treasury Secretary Lew gets a ‘D’ for timeliness.

CBO Recommends Taxes Raised “Immediately and Permanently” to Fund Social Security

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As a long time watcher of Social Security I was shocked (yes, shocked) at the recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on America’s largest entitlement program. CBO concluded that the long term outlook for SS deteriorated substantially over the last twelve months.

Busted

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Sometime in mid-October the debt ceiling will have been breached. I don’t expect that this will result in a showdown or a crisis. Washington will gloss this over. A new debt ceiling will be established to keep the music going.

Krugman Vs. Feldstein on Interest Rates and the Fed

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Paul Krugman has been taken shots at Martin Feldstein. Feldstein made the case that the Fed is keeping interest rates artificially low – and sooner or later this will cause a problem.

On Senator Ron Johnson Vs Krugman

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Paul Krugman had another of his nasty moment on TV Sunday when he took on Senator Ron Johnson (R, WI). The topic was Social Security. I want to throw my two cents into this fray.

On the Global Numbers – CIA Edition

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The CIA has some new 2011/2012 numbers for the world’s economy. These numbers are as “good” as the countries who post the individual data, so it’s safe to be suspect.

The Best Thing to Happen to America in a Long Time

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It’s hard to describe how happy I am to see Walmart facing a slump. I’m delighted to see that the cause of Walmart’s problem is the 2% increase in Social Security withholding taxes.

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