Econ70
The economy added just 96,000 jobs in August. Worse, the DOL lowered the June and July estimates by 41,000! While the unemployment rate fell to 8.1%, it did so only because 368,000 Americans left the labor force, reducing the participation…
Read MoreThe Friday file: In a sign the economy may be recovering, the tooth fairy has upped the average payment to $3.00 this year from $2.60 in ’11. 3% of children received less than a dollar, 30% received exactly a dollar…
Read MoreThe federal gas tax of 18.4 cents/gallon, and 24.4 cents on diesel, was last raised in ’93. Since then, it’s lost considerable buying power due to inflation and increases in fuel efficiency. As a result, paying for federal road construction…
Read MoreThe number of governments in the US (from the federal government to special utility districts) fell to 89,055 in ’12 from 89,527 in ‘07, a decline of 0.5% and the first decline since ’72 when the number stood at 78,269.…
Read MoreWith the US public debt fast approaching $11 trillion, and Treasury yields at record lows (10-yr bonds @ 1.58%, 30-yr bonds @ 2.69%), the Treasury should refinance all our debt and lock in these low rates for a generation or…
Read MoreThe Friday file: From Neil Armstrong’s moon walk in ’69 through the last Luna mission in ‘76, 843 lbs. of moon rock were brought to earth, all of which belongs to the US Government. In ’93, 0.2 grams (one carat)…
Read MoreTo keep Spain and Italy in the euro, the ECB must buy Italian and Spanish bonds, as nobody else will. And, it can only do so if Merkel allows it. Separately, there’s the possibility that the German Constitutional Court will…
Read MoreWhen the Fed announces a third round of quantitative easing, expect unintended cross-currency consequences. Last time, the dollar fell against a host of currencies, but now central banks in many of those same countries will actively intervene to prevent their…
Read MoreWith Hertz’s purchase of Dollar-Thrifty, the number of major players in the rental-car industry is down to just three. Enterprise Holdings, owner of Alamo, National and Enterprise, controls 53% of the market. Following the merger, Hertz-Dollar-Thrifty will hold 23% of…
Read MoreIn the mid-2000s, American made roughly 160 million doctor visits/year. Since ’09, that number has fallen to 140 million, and has stayed there. Thus, real US per-capita spending on healthcare has been growing at just 2.1%/year, down from 4.3%/year earlier…
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