The Bowtie Economist's Daily Dose of 70-Word Wisdom

In 2022, US coal-related CO2 electricity generation emissions declined 7% due to an 8% reduction in coal-fired power generation. That capacity was, however, replaced by natural gas, solar, and wind such that CO2 emissions from electricity generation declined just 4%.…

After seeing volumes and profits surge during Covid, containership operators ordered new vessels totaling 26% of global container capacity just in time to see shipping volume sink. Old ships are suddenly being scrapped and overcapacity will persist for years. Maersk,…

During the 2023 Thanksgiving week, retail sales activity rose 6.3% Y-o-Y, the best weekly sales boost of the year as is almost always the case during Thanksgiving week. However, the rise in Y-o-Y sales was well down from last year’s…

The Friday File: While the number of close friends we have averages three, and the number of people we call friends is about 150 (also known as the Dunbar number), the number of people we know, including persons we see…

In 2019, UPS delivered 4.7 billion domestic packages, FedEx delivered 3 billion, and Amazon 1.9 billion. Last year, UPS distributed 5.3 billion, Amazon 5.2 billion and FedEx 3.3 billion. With UPS and FedEx volumes expected to be flat in 2023…

In 10/23, net job growth was relatively weak at 150,000. Moreover, most of the gains were in just three sectors, healthcare (58,000), government (51,000), and leisure & hospitality (19,000). While job growth will likely slow in the latter two categories,…

In 2022, philanthropic giving totaled $499.3 billion. Individuals gave $319 billion, foundations $105 billion, bequests $46 billion, and corporations $29 billion. Contributions declined 3.4% from 2021 and 10.5% after inflation, the biggest decline since the Great Recession. Charitable giving meaningfully…

With FTX exposed as fraudulent, and Binance as a money laundering operation, large, monopolistic, hugely profitable crypto exchanges must become legitimate actors. Binance’s settlement with the U.S. Treasury requiring it to create true anti-money laundering systems, and in the process,…

This Thanksgiving, 46 million turkeys (half of all turkeys sold) costing $1.3 billion will be consumed, and 88% of Americans will partake in a turkey dinner. While the average price of a 16 pound bird rose 1.3% compared to last…

Walmart, the biggest retailer in the U.S., has 1.5 million U.S. employees, enough to make it the 41st largest state. In FYE 1/23, Walmart had sales revenue of $606 billion, which would (pardon the apples to oranges comparison) make it…