There’s lots of good news. Housing starts are up. German investor confidence is up to its highest level in three years.
Cyprus is in trouble. It needs a bailout. How to finance it? One way: Take money from bank depositors — even from depositors whose accounts are insured (up to 100,000 euros in Cyprus). This insanity caused a bank run in Cyprus, pandemonium in Europe and hurt US markets.
Maybe other countries who need a bailout (like Spain) will also take money from their insured depositors? This is not good.That’s the fear.
The “Taking insured money” idea is not done. Cypriot politicians seem likely to reject the idea, thankfully. The fact that it’s been raised is not good for European banks. Remember: the last time the banks were in big trouble — the Depression — the U.S. created the FDIC and specifically government-insurance for bank accounts. So far, the only bank depositors who’ve lost money in the U.S. since have been unlucky people who had more money in the bank than the insurance limit. Good idea: Spread your money around. Better idea:
This is not a joke. My grandfather suffered through the depression in Europe and never trusted a bank ever after. When he died, we found $9,000 in cash sewn into his mattress. It was his life savings and he wanted to sleep on it.
IRWD stays hot. Read more. Click here. Here’s today’s analyst report on it from Morgan Stanley. Click here.
My favorite magazines: The Economist, The Week, New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, Men’s Journal and Vanity Fair. Latest issue:
OK. I will admit. I’m smitten with Taylor Swift. Try this: the woman is 23. Last year she earned $57 million. The woman works her guts out. She lives a clean, sane life and projects that work/clean ethic to her millions of fans (mostly teenage girls). An excerpt from this month’s Vanity Fair cover story:
Watching her rehearse that day, it became clear that Swift works incredibly hard. While her band-which she commands in a friendly, laid-back way-was taking a break, she continued practicing, playing songs on her guitar and piano, and going over sound issues with her soundman. “I’m the type of person, I have to study to get an A on the test,” she would tell me later. “I have to work really hard to get the record deal-I have to spend years at it to get good. I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.”
Her determination has paid off. The Taylor Swift triumphant music stats can go on and on, but here are a few: She’s a seven-time Grammy winner and the youngest person ever to win Album of the Year (for Fearless,T in 2009). She’s the only female artist, and the fourth artist ever, to twice have an album (Red and 2010’s Speak Now) sell a million copies in its first week. With Red, she became the first artist since the Beatles-and the only female artist ever-to have three consecutive albums spend six or more weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. She has sold more than 26 million albums and 75 million song downloads worldwide. She holds the Billboard record for the most Top 10 debuts in the history of its Hot 100.
At a time when the music industry is notoriously in disarray, Swift is selling albums like it’s 1979. “She’s one of the few genuine rock stars we’ve got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click,” said Rolling Stone. Neil Young has called her “a great writer.” Kris Kristofferson said, “She blows me away.” Stevie Nicks-defending Swift after their disastrous live duo at the 2010 Grammys, in which Swift sounded pitchy-compared her songwriting to Elton John’s and Neil Diamond’s.
And then there are the inevitable endorsements. Swift is a brand. She’s been called “America’s Sweetheart”: she rarely drinks, doesn’t smoke, go clubbing, or get arrested-she’s the anti-Lohan, and this squeaky-clean image has made her an attractive advertising partner for Target, Sony, CoverGirl, Keds, Elizabeth Arden, and, recently, Diet Coke.
Read the entire story here.
iPad on the wall. A jeans store in Manhattan has attached an iPad to its wall. It connects by WiFi to the Internet. It’s “tuned” to Pandora (which is free) and plugged into speakers in the ceiling. Hence, free, loud music — to sell jeans to young people.
He’s under the table.
A couple were having a quiet, romantic dinner in a fine restaurant. They were gazing lovingly at each other and holding hands.
The waitress, taking another order at a table a few steps away, suddenly noticed the man slowly sliding down his chair and under the table, but the woman acted unconcerned. The waitress watched as the man slid all the way down his chair and out of sight under the table. Still, the woman appeared calm and unruffled, apparently unaware her dining companion had disappeared.
The waitress, thinking this was a bit risqué behavior that might offend other diners, went over to the table and tactfully, began by saying to the woman,
“Pardon me, madam , but I think your husband has just slid under the table.”
The woman calmly looked up, “No, he didn’t. He has just walked in the door.”
Harry Newton is actually taken by Cramer’s warning last night that the stocks of banks and the insurers have gone “parabolic” in recent months and really have no where to go, except down. I resister the temptation to publish charts of escalating bank stocks
SGOL (gold) looks good at these depressed levels:
