Econ70
The Friday File: Times are so tough the Queen of England is feeling it. She is set to receive £30 million/year for the next several years, down from the £77.3 million she received some time ago. Worse, Prince Charles who…
The Friday File: Times are so tough the Queen of England is feeling it. She is set to receive £30 million/year for the next several years, down from the £77.3 million she received some time ago. Worse, Prince Charles who…
Since the Super Committee failed $1.2 trillion in mandatory budgets cuts, starting in ’13 and running through ’21, will commence. But, the $1.2 trillion in cuts are actually only $984 billion! The law assumed that by not borrowing $984 billion,…
In DC there are 8,600 cabs for 600K people; plenty of cabs and a hacker license is cheap. In Chicago there are restrictions; only 6,951 cabs for a population of 3 million, and a license costs $200,000. In Boston, there…
Consumers are spending but for how much longer? Over the past year disposable income is down, savings has fallen from 5.3% to 3.5%, household net worth has fallen by $2.4 trillion as house prices keep falling and credit card debt…
Over the six quarters ’09Q2 through ’10Q4 corporate profits captured 88% ($464 billion) of the growth in real national income ($528 billion) while wages and salaries accounted for slightly more than 1% of the growth ($7 billion). Through ’11Q1 corporate…
The Friday File: Where to invest? The S&P has been marking time for over a decade, Europe is in recession, Treasuries can only go down as yields rise, and gold looks pricey at $1,700. The answer, buy stock in the…
Due to Dodd-Frank, the Fed capped fees merchants pay credit card companies (CCCs) on debit cards (DCs) to about 21 cents from about 44 cents. When the fee was 44 cents, CCCs often reduced DC fees on small transactions; less…
Eager to take advantage of fat margins dairy farmers around the world ramped up production in response to high prices. But, those same record prices weakened consumer demand for milk (down 4%), cheese (1.5%) and butter (2.5%). Now, the increased…
During Q3 ‘11 U.S. GDP finally exceeded the real pre-recession peak of total economic output recorded in Q4 ‘07. It took 15 quarters to offset the 5.1% decline in output during the Great Recession, 3 times the average number of…