Archive

Posts Tagged ‘Eric Singer’
December 31st, 2012 at 4:44 pm
Singer: How to Avoid the Next Fiscal Cliff

Want to avoid future “fiscal cliffs”?  Eric Singer, portfolio manager of the Congressional Effect Fund, argues for three reforms.  First, adopt Economist Thomas Sowell’s idea to pay Members of Congress at least $1 million a year, but make the pay subject to all the rules and tax rates experienced by every other taxpayer.  Second, pass Warren Buffett’s proposed constitutional amendment to ban from reelection any current member who presides over a budget deficit.  Third, require members to forfeit any pay increases when there is a budget deficit.  According to Singer, the result would be timely, serious budgets.

Why this approach?

The celebrity life with its fame and wealth requires constant performance, and full engagement in the task at hand. Even the Yankees benched Alex Rodriguez when he stopped doing his job. When lawmakers hide inside the fog of politics and can’t produce serious budgets, keep us safe or meaningfully prevent us from going over the cliff, it’s time to bench them.

After all, it’s not just a game, it’s our country and its future. Let’s see which new players are interested once we align Congress’ interests with those of America.

July 13th, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Fed Chairman Admits Not Thinking About ‘Cumulative Impact’ of Govt. Regulations

Eric Singer, portfolio manager of Congressional Effect Fund, identifies the single biggest problem with government regulators in his op-ed for Investor’s Business Daily:

JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon recently asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke if he considered the cumulative impact of each regulation. Bernanke admitted he had not. The ongoing surprisingly bad unemployment numbers confirm that no one in charge is thinking about the cumulative impact of each tiny strangulation of capital and operating capability.

As Singer correctly concludes, “We need to go back to basics, cut these Lilliputian ropes and unleash the potential giant economy that is still on its back.”

October 15th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Congressional Effect: Making Money While Congress is Out of Session

Check out this Fox Business interview with Eric Singer, the founder of Congressional Effect Management, an investment firm that only gets into the stock market when Congress is out of session.  The key to Singer’s strategy is avoiding ‘political risk’ – the damage to wealth creation that Congress causes through taxes and regulation (real or threatened).

Read this CFIF profile of Congressional Effect Management for a more in-depth discussion on Singer’s time-tested, data-driven approach.

October 6th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
The ‘Congressional Effect’ Strikes Again

Earlier, CFIF profiled Eric Singer of Congressional Effect Management as the foremost proponent of avoiding political risk by investing in the stock market only when Congress it out of session.  In his own commentary, Singer blasts Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) do-nothing-right caucus for failing to address the budget crisis they created:

As the nation watches in horror as its debt begins to grow beyond the point of no return, the Congressional Budget Office continues statically scoring all legislation.

It assumes that if tax rates are raised, taxes received by the Treasury will go up proportionately. It disregards the impact of the extra 10 billion hours it now takes to figure out our taxes.

It ignores the fact that in the face of 1,400 new regulations from health care and financial overhauls (Sarbanes-Oxley had only 16), virtually all businesses will slow down and hoard cash as they try to understand what the new rules might be.

Static scoring assumes that the uncertainty created by the presence of new laws and new regulations does not affect behavior or taxes collected. Static scoring assumes some sucker will always be available to buy our debt no matter how much we waste. Worst of all, it assumes no one will change behavior to reduce taxes.

Every assumption of the static scoring model is demonstrably false. Higher tax rates usually result in lower revenues as people change their actions to reduce their tax burden. This will certainly happen if some or all of the Bush tax cuts expire and the economy continues to sag as a result. The time, cost and restraints of new regulations can choke businesses.

The kind of rampant uncertainty caused by the explosion in federal regulations will continue to slow America’s economic recovery.  Riffing on Singer, maybe after passing CFIF’s ‘One More Vote’ initiative, the country can pass a constitutional amendment to limit the amount of congressional work days.

H/T: Investor’s Business Daily