Jeremy Siegel: Three phases of fed tightening

In this Yahoo! Finance article by Jeremy Siegel, he describes three steps the Fed must take and why it will be beneficial to our economy (even though it may seem counterintuitive.

1. Has already taken place and that is increasing the Fed Funds rate
2. Further increases in the Fed Funds rate and increasing the rate it pays for reserves
3. Open market sales and further increases in the rate it pays for reserves

Click here to read more details.

It does seem like Mergers and Acquisitions are picking up

Here's a recent LA Times article from September 21, 2009 listing three high-profile deals that were announced. Today on Yahoo! Finance there are two more deals listed by Cisco (click here) and Viasat (click here). Most of these are in the (low) billions.

Another sign that things are eventually turning around (hopefully).

Video: What will it be? V, W, L, U, VW, or Square-root?

Wow. So many descriptors to what we're going through from an economic recovery perspective. Now here's a video of someone describing a "Square-root" recovery.

Click here to watch.

Things must be betting better, right?

Seems like a lot of the banks are paying the "TARP" funds/loans back. Goldman Sachs is the most recent announcing that they are prepared to pay the government back.

This means that things are better, right? In order to pay back, they had to prove that they could raise capital in the open market. During the "crisis," liquidity was a concern and no one (read institutions) was loaning to each other. They were holding on to their own capital because of the unknown.

So...either things are truly getting better or maybe institutions are creating loans to each (fabricating?) just to show that they can borrow...just so they can get out from TARP scrutiny...just so they can continue to pay executives and other key staff what they want to pay them.

I think everyone hopes that it's the first.

Click here for the article.