Month: July 2011
A lack of progress over the U.S. debt ceiling and intensifying contagion concerns in Europe (Portugal, Spain and Italy may go the way of Greece and Ireland) have triggered a further flight-to-safety; equity markets are generally in retreat and quality…
Read MoreElevators in Israel are high-tech. Rather than pushing an up or down button, you type in the desired floor and are assigned an elevator. Once inside, there are no buttons to push. This is an example of “fuzzy logic”. It…
Read MoreNonfarm payrolls rose by a profoundly dismal 18K in June, way below the 125K gain expected by economists! Making things worse, job gains in May were revised down to 25K from 54K. The unemployment rate inched up by 0.1% to…
Read MoreThe Law of Unintended Consequences: First our bodies and carry-on luggage were scanned before getting on a flight. Then, it was our shoes; still later it was gels and liquids. But to be successful terrorists must stay one step ahead…
Read MoreWhile Americans are huge consumers of energy, Israelis are stingy. And, tax policy is why! The duty on all new cars is 100% (yes, 100%) and gas costs about $7.25/gal. As a result, most cars are small and get great…
Read MoreOn the 2nd to last day of each month the Israeli gov’t determines the maximum price gas may be sold for the next month. So, on the 29th of June the gov’t announced that the maximum price gas may be…
Read MoreSorry about not blogging yesterday; I was floating in the Dead Sea. As for the cottage cheese boycott; it’s over. Two days ago the largest dairy in Israel caved in to the nation-wide boycott and reduced the price by 21%.…
Read More- « Previous
- 1
- 2