Upcoming Appearances

Thursday morning panel at the SkyBridge Capital SALT Conference in Las Vegas

Liberty Forum - Salt Lake City

MoneyShow - Las Vegas

Economic News for the Week: March Factory Orders met expectations, but downwardly revised February number for 5th straight year-over-year monthly drop

March Trade Deficit: $51.4 billion, a miss greater than $10 billion and the single worst trade deficit since October 2008 and largest monthly gain in nearly 20 years

If the economy is so good, why do we have such a large trade deficit?

Rising oil prices, along with other rising prices are putting additional pressure on consumers

April U.S. Auto Sales fell, missing expectations for the 5th month in a row - sales at lowest year-over-year start since 2009

The auto bubble has burst

The United States has been spared the discipline of the market by virtue of the dollar being the reserve currency

Gold is still just below $1,200/ounce - we will eventually run out of sellers who are keeping prices down, and when it goes up it will go up in a spectacular way

Aussie dollar is up a percent and a quarter

Canadian dollar up half a percent

Euro up a third of a percent

Swiss Franc up almost a full percent

There was some good news: April ISM Service Non-Manufacturing Index rose, to 57.8, beating estimates

New orders plunged into negative territory

April PMI dropped from 59.2 in March to 57.4, a bigger drop than expected

No one is looking for the April jobs number to be lower

The consensus is also for unemployment to keep falling from 5.5% to 5.4%

If we have all these jobs, why isn't the consumer spending?

The answer is the jobs don't pay very much or the hours are reduced

Meanwhile, as much as the Fed wants to pretend there is low inflation, the cost of living is rising

The one safety net for the consumer was oil prices, and now that is gone