Econ70
Trade predates agriculture. The advent of ag sped up the trend towards specialization in temperate zones, but not in the tropics. Why, perishability. If you can store what you make (cereals) you trade it. And trade leads to cities, stable…
Remember the $39 billion spending cut pushed by Republicans in April that averted a gov’t shutdown? It was all smoke and mirrors! Instead of cutting outlays the CBO now figures it will actually increase spending by $3.2 billion. The cuts…
Major averages have hit post-recovery highs aided and abetted by fattening margins provide by massive excess labor and the decline in unit labor costs that go along with that as well as the torque from a vibrant overseas economy and…
The good: University of Michigan consumer sentiment index (a nat’l index) improved more than forecast in May. It’s at 72.4 up from 69.8 in April. The Bad: Economist had predicted 70. The Ugly: This reading is below the avg of…
Week of 5/9/11 data recap: Retail sales were weak beneath the surface with 60% of the strength in April sales coming from higher prices for gasoline and food; looking closely at the Producer Price Index there is still minimal evidence…
The “Lady Blunt” a 1721 violin built by Stradivari sold at auction for 200K in ‘71. Nippon Music paid $10 million for it in ’08 and is auctioning it off on 6/20 with proceeds benefiting victims of Japan’s quake and…
In ‘58 Cong banned the trading of futures contracts on onions! Growers lobbied a MI Congressman named Gerald Ford to push the law hoping it would reduce volatility. Since then onion price volatility has made swings in oil and corn…
The default rate for all federal student loans rose to 13.8% from 11.8% for students beginning repayment in FY ‘08 compared with ‘07 according to the DOE. For public schools, the default rate is 10.8% while it is only 7.6%…
Greece must leave the Euro! Argentina (Arg) shows why. From ’98 through ’01 Arg was in a bad recession; the Peso was pegged to the USD. Arg borrowed from the IMF cut spending and the economy tanked. Then Arg defaulted…
The Greek 10-yr gov’t bond yield is 14.7%, 11.5% above comparable German bonds. The 2-yr Greek note is trading at 22.2%, 20.45 % above the German 2-yr note. The cost of insuring Greek sovereign bonds jumped to 1,422 basis points…