Econ70
Senate Democrats’ decision to remove the filibuster for executive-branch nominees works. They only stay as long as the administration does. But doing away with the filibuster for all judgeships (with the exception of Supreme Court nominees) was a mistake. Their…
The Friday File: In a moment of economic madness, the US government recently destroyed six tons of ivory, equivalent to the ivory from 2,000 elephants, and worth $16.3 million, or $8,200/elephant. With only 200,000 elephants left and a record 25,000…
A problem with solar and wind energy is that it’s intermittent. Since renewables generally have grid priority over other sources, when renewables surge other sources must rapidly decline to compensate. But since nuclear and coal plants are designed to run…
Reading the just released minutes from the most recent Fed meeting, it sounds like when the Fed starts reducing its monthly purchases of $85 billion in treasuries and MBS, the Fed will concurrently announce that it will keep short term…
In Q3, investment in home improvements was $178 billion, while construction spending on new single family (SF) houses and townhouses was $172 billion, each about one percent of GDP. Similarly, in Q1 spending on home improvements was $161 billion, slightly…
After losing 2.7 million jobs in the Great Recession, 68 million women are now working, 100,000 below the all-time high set in 4/08. By contrast, men lost 5.9 million jobs in the Recession, and currently 76.4 million men are employed,…
The Friday File: In a sign of how well the super-rich are doing, a recent contemporary/postwar art auction netted $692 million, breaking the record of $495 million set in May. A triptych by Francis Bacon went for $142.2 million, a…
Since special federal manufacturing tax breaks were eliminated in 2006, Puerto Rico’s economy has shrunk by 16% and its population by almost 4%. Worse, with $70 billion in bonds outstanding (more than all but NY and CA) there is fear…
Since 2006, Germany has been running annual trade surpluses of over 6% of GDP, making it hard for Southern European nations to export their way to prosperity. While the EU is employing harsh adjectives with Berlin in an attempt to…
While most of the economic data released last week was hum drum, the two biggest data points surprised to the upside. Q3 GDP came in at 2.8%, when all genius economists expected 2%, and employment growth was a robust 204,000,…