Archive for March 2013
Leapin’ Leprechauns
The Friday File: On St. Patrick’s Day we drink 1% of all beer consumed in America, which equals 1.62 pints per/person, so drink up! 34.5 million Americans claim Irish ancestry which is seven times the population of Ireland. The total value of Irish imports to the US is $39.4 billion and it takes 40 pounds…
Read MoreGovernment as Insurer
Our government runs the FDIC to protect us from bank failures, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation to protect our pensions, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare to protect our health, FHA, Fannie and Freddie to guarantee our mortgages, Social Security to protect our income in old age, crop insurance, flood insurance and on and on. I only…
Read MoreMinimal Migration
Youth unemployment in Spain is 56%, in Greece it is 58%, while in Germany it’s 8%. This should cause a mass influx of youth from these peripheral countries to Germany. Surprisingly, it’s not. Between 1/12 and 6/12 just 3,900 Spaniards and 6,900 Greeks made their way to Germany. Here in States, large unemployment rate differences…
Read MorePollution Problems
The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emitted in 2011 rose by 3% (a billion tons) from 2010 to 38.2 billion tons. Of the planet’s top 10 polluters, only the USA and Germany reduced emissions. China emitted 10 billion tons, up from nine billion in 2010, followed by the USA at 5.9 billion, India at 2.5,…
Read MoreWork? No Thanks
While the February unemployment rate eased from 7.92% to 7.74%, 40% of the fall resulted from a decline in the civilian labor force of 130,000 due to both the weak economy and retiring Boomers. As a result, the labor force participation rate hit a new cyclical low of 63.5%, a level last seen in 9/81…
Read MoreNumber Games
The Friday File: Despite being spectacularly counterintuitive, Benford’s Law states that leading digits (the number 8 in 8,456) are unevenly distributed. Benford found that one is the leading digit 31% of the time, two 17% of the time, three 12.5%, four 10%, five 8%, six 6%, and the other numbers 5% each. Antitrust economists are…
Read MoreFisher at the Fed?
With Bernanke’s term at the Fed up in January, Obama will have to name a successor. That person should be Stan Fisher. In addition to having an outstanding record as Governor of the Bank of Israel, he’s a skilled diplomat, regulator and politician and a brilliant economist. Moreover, with the UK snaring Bank of Canada…
Read MoreBye Bye Bankruptcy
In a sign of reduced economic stress among households and firms, total US bankruptcy filings are down. They fell from 104,537 last February to 82,285 this February, a fall of 21%. Consumer filings declined from 99,378 to 78,611 while commercial filings declined from 5,159 to 3,674. Personal bankruptcy filings peaked in 2010 at 1.54 million,…
Read MoreCashless Cyprus
While small, the Cypriot bank bailout is causing heartburn across the Eurozone. At its peak, the banking sector had assets eight times GDP and now needs $13 billion. If Cyprus borrows the money, their debt-to-GDP ratio becomes unsustainable. Writing down sovereign debt won’t work because it’s held by the banks and forcing a haircut on…
Read MoreTough Tax
While imposing a financial transaction tax (FTT) on purchases of stocks, bonds, options and derivatives will reduce trading and may raise revenue — if traders don’t move their business elsewhere which is usually the case — it also increases volatility, exactly the opposite of what is intended. Turns out, where FTTs have been imposed, they…
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