SEC Issues Trailblazing Climate Disclosure Proposal At long last, after studying the issue for many years, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has finally released its long-awaited proposal to require companies to disclose their climate risks to investors. These proposed rules (neatly summarized in a 506 page notice) will require all publicly traded companies to disclose both their greenhouse [...]
By Dr. Jonathan Tiemann, February 11, 2017 On Friday, February 3, 2017, a group of business leaders convened at the White House with the President, members of his family, and his ever-watchful Vice President, presumably to lobby for policies conducive to the profitability of their businesses. The financial markets advanced, as though relieved that the President had chosen to take [...]
By Dr. Jonathan Tiemann, January 20, 2017 With a new Administration comes a new Cabinet, so the US Senate spent most of its time this week in hearings with Cabinet nominees on whom the Constitution requires them to provide their advice and consent. On January 19, the Senate Finance Committee interviewed the new Treasury Secretary-designate, Steven Mnuchin. The hearing was [...]
By Dr. Jonathan Tiemann Pity the poor hedge fund manager. The lead item in one of the many daily “news” emails I received today — this one from Chief Investment Officer magazine — reads, “Don’t Blame the Hedge Fund Managers.” [1] The burden of the item is that it isn’t the funds’ managers’ fault that they performed so badly during [...]
By Dr. Jonathan Tiemann In my childhood, my favorite cartoon was The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, a Cold War-era sendup of the popular cloak-and-dagger movies of the day. The heroes, Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Bullwinkle T. Moose, always managed, in their bumbling way, to thwart the arch-villains, Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. In one memorable adventure, Boris and [...]
By Dr. Jonathan Tiemann Last month, a general election in Greece brought to power a leftist party called Syriza. Syriza’s leader — Greece’s new Prime Minister — Alexis Tsipras, campaigned on promises to roll back the severe economic austerity the previous government had accepted as a condition for continued financial support from the rest of the Eurozone. But while Mr. [...]
Despite the well-pronouced and increasingly strident warnings from scientists about the deleterious effects of burning fossil fuels on the environment, there is a surprising amount of "business as usual" going on in corporate America. This makes the news about the way Anne Stausboll, the chief executive of Calpers, addresses climate change all the more impressive. According to an article in [...]
Interesting as Bitcoin is as a phenomena, Tiemann Investment Advisors does not believe that Bitcoin or any Bitcoin-related entity is ready for prime time. To learn more about how Dr. Tiemann thinks about Bitcoin, please read his Viewpoint Note "The Irony of Bitcoin." Nevertheless, the Bitcoin news feed remains an exciting if roiling place, perhaps not unlike the wild west, [...]
In mid-December, Goldman Sachs released a report with news that they had calculated the impacts from the large drop in the price of oil, which at that time had dropped 49 percent in less than six months: a stunning $1 trillion in at risk future oil projects. The projects — oil field investment "zombies" — were deemed all but dead [...]
Posted July 28, 2014 Henry J. Aaron, a Senior Fellow, at the Brookings Institute, testified before the House Judiciary Committee on July 24th, providing five very sound reasons why a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution was not viable solution to the U.S.'s escalating deficits. His summary of his comments is as follows: Balanced budget amendments have been around a [...]