Billionaires Dumping Stocks

According to Money News, billionaires are dumping US stocks despite the 6.5% rally this month. Most notable among the billionaires who are selling are Warren Buffet, the Oracle of Omaha, and George Soros, who sold more than a million shares vested in JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.  Some individuals, like Robert Wiedemer in the article, have predicted a massive contraction in the market.  While individuals have rushed to swat Wiedemer statement down, the fact that billionaires are selling their shares gives his statement some weight. I for one am a bit angry.

Economy Contracted Lasted Quarter of 2012

Well it looks like the last quarter of 2012 saw the contraction we all expected. Does this mean the economic dice have finally fallen into place? Not likely, I imagine that the release of this news will spur ever more priming and pumping, however, while the contraction was small, just .1 percent annual rate, this is a marked decline given that the quarter before saw 3.1% annualized growth.

However, even if this contraction is just a minor blip, and it's hard to say given how much government distorts actual economic production today, the news is still not good. Economists predict that we need the economy to grow at least at the rate it did during the third quarter of 2012 if we want to lower unemployment. Economic growth in 2012 was officially 2.2 percent.  My question though, is how much of that was self sustained private sector growth, versus growth spurred on by the government.

Legislators Starting To See How Dire Crisis Is

Yes he is a small time legislator from an arguably from an unimportant, electorally, state. But individuals should take note when members of the leadership not only recognize the crisis; but act on it.

Is South Africa Becoming Increasingly Racially Radicalized?

My girlfriend forwarded this disturbing report today in an instance where South African police fired into a crowd of striking workers, killing 18.  Even more disturbing than an instance of police violence on its citizens is that the striking workers were armed with machetes, apparently this strike has already gone violent in some respects.

The fact that workers, in a country that has long had to deal with poverty for much of its citizens, are becoming more vocally radical isn't too unexpected, though not reassuring.  What really bothers me is that I detected the beginnings of what could become unrest that is more race based.

“N.U.M. is working with the white people and getting money. They forgot about the workers"

I don't expect the old wounds of apartheid South Africa to have healed in only twenty years. But the fact that there are protesters wielding machetes and that some of them specifically mention race, well, that might be a harbinger of things to come. Though I certainly hope that it isn't the case.