Month: February 2012

Love is Priceless!

02/14/2012

Valentine’s Day spending this year is expected to reach an all-time high of $17.6 billion. Among the 140 million Americans planning to celebrate, average spending will be $126.03, up 8.5% over last year. The average male will spend $168.74 the…

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Moooove Over

02/13/2012

The combination of high agricultural land values, competition for land from corn, soybeans and other crops, severe drought, the high price of feed and surging exports have raised live cattle prices to a record $1.26 per pound. Yet, farmers continue…

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Love Someone

02/10/2012

The Friday File: Economists find that an underdog tennis player is more likely to win if the winner of that match must then play a top ranked opponent. The highly ranked next opponent causes both players to “save” themselves so…

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Costly Unemployment

02/09/2012

As Congress considers–and eventually extends–a temporary payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits past 2/12, it should note that if both lapse GDP in ’12 would be reduced by 1%, when GDP growth is only 2%. They might also note…

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The Unparticipation Rate

02/08/2012

The latest employment report was great, but a little perspective, please. The labor force participation rate is now 63.7% it lowest level since 5/83! (The all-time high was 67.3% in 3/00). Worse, since the recession ended in 6/09, rather than…

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Creditless-Default Swaps?

02/07/2012

As the Greek government defaults on its bonds, holders of Greek credit-default swaps will probably get nothing as the default will be “selective” and will thus not officially trigger a default. This not only hurts banks who thought they were…

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Subsidized Transit

02/06/2012

The DC Transit system’s (bus and subway) annual budget is $1.56 billion. Half the money comes from fares, half from subsidies. About 675,000 roundtrips are taken daily. That works out to an annual subsidy of $1,100 per rider. Capitalized, that…

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Dem Winners

02/03/2012

The Friday File: Since ’09 NFL teams have given big bucks to politicians. The Texans gave the most at 293K, the Chargers were next at 172K and the Jets were 3rd at 148K. They also favored Rs 2 to 1…

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Profit Squeeze

02/02/2012

Amazon recently announced earnings. And, while revenues and profit margins always change, ’11 was clearly not a banner year for earning. In Q4 ’11 Amazon had revenue of $17.4 billion but net income of only $177 million, a margin of…

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Rents on the Rise

02/01/2012

Good News: Vacancy rates at malls averaged 9.4% in Q4 ’11 down from an 11 year high of 9.6% in Q3 ’11 but way up from the all-time low of 5.5% in ’07. Meanwhile vacancy rates at strip malls held…

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