Blog Posts by Aaron Task

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By winning handily in Florida, Mitt Romney put himself in back in the driver's seat to win the GOP nomination. Whether or not Romney wins the nomination - much less the general election - private equity seems to be the big losers of the 2012 campaign so far.

"In the fight that's going on for the nomination, private equity is caught in the middle," says Joel Kurtzman, a senior fellow at the Milken Institute and former editor of Harvard Business Review. "I don't see people standing up to defend the industry [but], overall, its impact on the economy is quite positive."

'Quite positive' might be an overstatement, but academic research suggests all the talk about private equity (PE) being "vulture capitalism" is just election-year hyperbole.

While there are examples of private equity deals that resulted in lost jobs and debt-laden companies, there are plenty of companies that have benefited from private equity investment, including Mitt

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According to conventional wisdom, Mitt Romney's big Florida primary win can be attributed to one thing: Money.

Romney's campaign outspent Gingrich by nearly 5-to-1 in the Sunshine State, with $15.4 million spent by Romney and pro-Romney Super PACs vs. just $3.7 million by Gingrich and his supporters, The NY Times reports.

But Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner has made a (very) successful career of debunking conventional wisdom and gives a "big fat no" to the idea that money won the Florida election for Romney (or any election, for that matter.)

"It's one of the great truisms in politics - 'money buys elections'," he says. "But it's just really not so."

Citing the research of his co-author and University of Chicago economics professor Steven Levitt has done, Dubner says a candidate who doubles their spending gets an extra 1% of the popular vote. Conversely, candidates who halved their spending lost 1% of the vote. This is true in

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The late 2011-early 2012 rally is facing its first real challenge amid a string of negative headlines coming from (you guessed it) Europe.

European stocks tumbled and yields of Portuguese debt surged to Euro-era highs Monday as EU finance ministers gathered for their first meeting of the New Year. The failure of negotiations over a restructuring of Greece's debts has revived fears of a disorderly default.

In recent trading, the Dow was down 0.82% to 12,556.20.

Most observers expect the talks to be resolved this week but the delays have raised new concerns over Portugal's finances.

"Whatever is worked out for Greece would eventually serve as the blueprint for Portugal," writes Dan Greenhaus chief global strategist at BTIG. "While it has gotten far less attention that Greece, Portugal finds itself in similar straits and indeed, bond yields are moving much, much higher. At this rate, Portugal is going to move from the back to front

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In his State of the Union address, President Obama called for Congress to pass a mysterious, miracle plan that would allow all Americans under water on their mortgages to refinance, saving around $3000 a year each.

The next day, Ben Bernanke talked about "problems in housing finance" as one reason why the Fed's super-easy monetary policy has struggled to revive the economy.

Which bring us to another edition of Taken to Task...

Everyone knows the housing market is a huge key to the economy. As long as housing remains weak, millions of Americans will find themselves under a crippling debt load and unable to move to where they can get a better job because they're anchored to a house they can't unload.

To date, almost all of the government's programs - from HAMP to the Fed's zero interest rates -- have focused on trying to help downtrodden people refinance to lower rates, or to get principal write-downs in the hardest hit markets. And the

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The Fed's announcement it will leave rates at zero until "at least" the end of 2014 makes a bit more sense in light of Friday's advanced fourth-quarter GDP report.

The U.S. economy grew 2.8% in the fourth quarter, the strongest since the second quarter of 2010 and up from 1.2% in the prior three quarters.

But growth was below consensus of 3% and the guts of the report suggested underlying weakness in the economy vs. strength, a big reason the Fed felt compelled to double-down on its zero interest rate policy. (See: Bernanke Pledges to Keep Rates Low Thru 2014: A "Very Pessimistic" Outlook, Former Fed VP Says)

U.S. stocks sold off in apparent reaction to the news, with the Dow recently down 0.7%.

But "let's not confuse the fundamentals with the market," my Breakout colleague Jeff Macke quips in the accompanying video, noting the market was arguably overdue for a pause after its stellar gains since mid-December.

Still, the fundamentals

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The day after the Fed's surprise promise to keep rates low until the end of 2014 "at least," a lot of market watcher as still scratching their heads.

As is so often the case, most of the reaction is tilted toward the negatives, and can be grouped into three main categories:

• - The Fed is debasing the dollar.
• - The Fed is going to trigger inflation and has now tied its hands.
• - The Fed knows "something" and is very worried about the economy. (See: Bernanke Pledges to Keep Rates Low Thru 2014: A "Very Pessimistic" Outlook, Former Fed VP Says )

As is so often the case, Byron Wien takes a contrary opinion to the consensus and is more optimistic than most.

"What they're trying to do is say 'the Fed is on your side Mr. Businessman; you can borrow at low rates,'" says Wien, vice chairman of Blackstone Advisory Partners. "By stretching it out to 2014, they're adding their support to whatever incipient optimism is developing in the business

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The power of Apple's business model was on full display this week, when the company reported astonishingly strong fiscal first-quarter results. The company's shares surged on Wednesday, bringing Apple's market cap to over $416 billion, just a hair below ExxonMobil's as the world's most valuable company. (See: STAY STOKED APPLE FANS: This Should Be One Heck Of A Year!)

In his new book, Inside Apple, Fortune's Adam Lashinsky delves far beyond one quarter and seeks to understand what makes Apple so successful, and so unique.

His conclusion: "Think Different" isn't just a marketing slogan.

"They do things exactly the opposite from the way most companies do business and, indeed, the way business is taught in business school," Lashinsky says.

For example, while most Fortune 500 firms believe senior managers should be capable of performing multiple functions within an organization, Apple "values expertise," he says.

Similarly, while most companies focus on employee development and "upward mobility" within a firm, Lashinsky notes Apple's attitude is: "If you're really good at this, keep doing it."

The Federal Reserve did not announce another round of quantitative easing Wednesday but still had a gift for the speculators.

In a surprising and somewhat perplexing move, the FOMC announced plans to keep rates at "exceptionally low levels" -- a.k.a. zero -- through 2014 "at least" vs. mid-2013 previously.

The promise of an extra year (plus!) of easy money prompted traders to put the "risk" trade back on. Stocks, Treasuries and commodities rallied while the dollar declined in response to the announcement. In recent trading, the Dow was up 0.6% to 12,750 after trading as low as 12,580 earlier in the day.

The only thing tempering the euphoria among traders is the implications of the Fed's forecast.

Keeping rates low until 2014 is "good policy [only] if you believe the recovery is going to be very weak and weak globally," says Gerald O'Driscoll, former vice president and economic adviser at the Dallas Fed and currently a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. "If they really think they can