Econ70

When Turing Pharmaceuticals acquired Daraprim, they raised the price from $13.50/dose to $750/dose because they had a monopoly on it. In 2010 China tried to corner the market in rare-earths by reducing exports; prices quickly rose 1000%. Then economics kicked…

The tragedy of China’s draconian population control policies is they were promoted to solve economic problems. The problem was the dreadful economic policies implemented by China’s elites! The one-child policy has led to massive infanticide, sex-selective abortions and much worse.…

Uber/Lyft solved a market failure deliberately created by municipalities who, acting as monopolists, prevent free entry and exit into taxi markets. To protect against unwanted market entry, licenses were required that were difficult to obtain. Taxis were made artificially rare…

Despite last week’s array of disappointing data, including quarterly GDP growth of 1.5%, weak housing and business fixed investment spending, weak consumer spending and wage and inflation data, the economy’s OK. Q3 GDP growth was temporarily depressed primarily due to…

The Friday File: Halloween spending is expected to reach $6.9 billion this year including $2.3 billion on costumes, $2.2 billion on candy (which is experiencing annual inflation of 4.2%, 2.3 times the increase in the CPI) $2 billion on decorations,…

Late last week, the Chinese central bank lowered interest rates for the sixth time in 12 months and reduced the required reserve ratio for the fourth time in a year to prop up its slowing economy. With substantial overcapacity and…

Unsurprisingly, earlier today the Fed kept interest rates unchanged. In the press release following the meeting, the Fed found yet another way to say absolutely nothing about their future intentions, allowing the release to become a Rorschach test for market…

Absent any fanfare, finagling or fireworks, Congress finally raised the debt ceiling, reauthorized the Export-Import Bank and reached a budget deal that raises spending by $50 billion in FY16 and $30 billion in FY17. This is unambiguously good. It also…

Despite today’s weak new home sales data, YTD sales are at 392,000, up 18% compared to January-September 2014. Last September, 37,000 new homes were sold; 36,000 were sold last month. The peak, 99,000 in 9/05; the trough; 24,000 in 9/11.…

The Friday File: According to the CPI, the quality adjusted price for PCs and computer peripherals declined a stunning 96% between 12/97 and 8/15. Back then, an Intel Pentium 300 MHz processor was tops and desktop computers sold for over…