Econ70
With the Obamacare requirement that most employers offer affordable health insurance to their employees soon to become law, expect total employment to rise and hours worked/worker to fall. This is because employers will force their employees, where possible, to work…
Read MoreWith house prices soaring by double digits and investors buying large numbers of homes, there is suddenly talk of another housing bubble. I doubt it. Affordability is still remarkably high, credit is being extended to only the best borrowers, and…
Read MoreThe key problem holding Europe back isn’t high interest rates, it’s the weak condition of their banks and thus their unwillingness to lend. Exacerbating the problem is that in Europe banks are the basically the only source for money and…
Read MoreThis past week of economic data had something for everyone. For bulls, it was an improving non-manufacturing sector, higher auto sales and record breaking household wealth. For bears, it was a weakening manufacturing sector, a worsening trade deficit and a…
Read MoreThe Friday file: Ever wonder why US credit card technology is substandard compared to Europe and Asia? The answer, cheap phone calls. Because calls here are cheap, credit card transactions are called in for authorization. In Europe, where state-owned monopolies…
Read MoreWith the Fed, the Bank of England and recently the Bank of Japan engaging in massively expansionary monetary policy, central banks in South Africa, India, Australia, Poland, Korea, Denmark, Israel and elsewhere are lowering their interest rates too. They are…
Read MoreIn an upset, the British Columbia Liberal Party narrowly won re-election over the left-leaning New Democratic Party. Importantly, the biggest plank in the Liberal’s platform was backing pipelines to transport oil and gas from Alberta through BC to the Pacific…
Read MoreAdding to the low inflation environment we’re in, is Japan’s central-bank bond buying. By reducing the value of the Yen by about 20% in just a few months, it has made buying Japanese cars and other Japanese goods cheaper. And…
Read MoreBecause interest to bondholders is tax deductible, while dividend payments to shareholders are not, lowering the corporate tax rate will reduce the incentive of all corporations including banks to raise capital by issuing debt. Assuming the top corporate tax rate…
Read MoreLooking ahead at the second half of 2013, the economic news is pretty solid. The US economy is on the mend, the labor market is slowly healing and house prices are up about 10% from year-ago levels. In addition, Europe…
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