Financial Services Report (4/19)

This past week may be remembered as the sunset of two well-worn political clichés.  First, the old adage about how “if you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made,” might no longer be possible in the modern media age as factions from both the left and the right continue to […]

Investment News posted an article quoting Thorn Run Partners' Jason Rosenstock.  The online publication, which dives into the investment world, was parsing out industry news from the so-called Cromnibus.  “It's going to be one of those high-level negotiations between the big four House and Senate leadership," said TRP's Jason Rosenstock. Mr. Rosenstock was commenting on riders that could be […]

Once again Friday’s jobs number came in significantly higher than expectations.  While the Bloomberg survey of economists predicted an increase of 230,000 the BLS reported that the American economy added 321,000 plus added upward revisions from the previous two months totaling another 44,000 jobs.  While the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.8 percent, this marked […]

President Obama’s Executive Order on Immigration certainly stirred the rhetorical pot.  Its impact on the political environment is still to be determined.  Certainly it may impact the end of the year spending bills – though then again, it may not.  We continue to hear that the Chairs of the Appropriations Committee, and House and Senate […]

The first quarter of the lame duck is in the books and it didn’t take long for commentators to begin chipping away at the spirit of bipartisanship that was being forged following the election.  Notwithstanding the game of political chicken looming over the Immigration issue and the end of year spending bills –shaping up either […]

While Republicans rejoiced and Democrats lamented the results of Tuesday’s election, both sides appeared to concur that once again, the electorate was sending a message that they want Washington to work.   Not surprisingly, immediately both sides were talking about ways to work together, which almost immediately followed by commentators explaining why this couldn’t happen.  (See, […]

Once again the smell of jet fumes and the need to get home to campaign overrode other political considerations as both the House and Senate wrapped up their work in DC by passing a continuing resolution that funds the government through December 11th.   When they come back there is a fairly good chance that we […]

In today's edition of Politico Morning Money, Thorn Run's Jason Rosenstock weighs in on this week's congressional negotiations over the future of the Export Import bank.  While some Republicans have opposed extension of the Ex-Im bank—arguing that such financing could be facilitated by the private sector—many House Democrats have emphasized demands for a longer extension […]

Although the conventional wisdom leads many to conclude that the Republicans will enhance their majorities in the House and have a better than 50-50 shot of taking over the Senate, the current debate about whether to reauthorize the Export-Import bank portends the future value of House Democrats to the business community.   With Minority Whip Hoyer […]

Today, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) released the final text of “Corporate Inverters Earnings Stripping Reform Act of 2014”. The bill is designed to “prevent earnings stripping of domestic corporations, which are members of a worldwide group of corporations which includes an inverted corporation,” while requiring “agreements with respect to certain related […]

Last week we learned that the economy added another 209,000 jobs, which was the six straight month with growth of at least 200,000 new jobs.  Although the unemployment numbers ticked up slightly, the news followed on earlier positive reports that the economy grew by 4% in the second quarter.  For Democrats, who are hoping that […]

Congress limps into the last week of July looking to notch some legislative victories in what has been an otherwise uneventful year.  With only two weeks of session remaining when they return, this last week in July may be the best bet for both chambers to deal with pressing items, such as the highway trust […]