Econ70
The Friday file: Because Rembrandt was an economical painter, his works tend to be small and portable. And, because his works sell for tens of millions, Rembrandt’s are stolen more often than any other artist save Picasso. About 80 of…
Read MoreWhile low interest rates are designed to encourage consumers and businesses to borrow and invest (with little success) the policy has hurt millions of older and retired persons. With money market funds paying 0.10%, 5-yr Treasuries paying 1.0% and 10-yr…
Read MoreRecently there has been massive realignment in college football resulting in fewer “major” conferences with more teams. I wonder if Congress will get involved. Might a Senator from a jilted school get the DOJ/FTC to investigate the idea that these…
Read MoreThe August Employment Report showed the average work week for all employees on private non-farm payrolls fell by 0.1 hour to 34.2 hours. While seemingly uneventful, the decline equates to the loss of 325,000 jobs across the broad economy. The…
Read MoreThe recent $2.3 billion trading loss reported by UBS begs the question, what are these guys doing? The activity is called Delta One (D1) trading and involves trading derivatives. It’s appealing because buying derivatives is more lucrative than buying the…
Read MoreThe Friday File: Can you trademark a color? Shoe manufacturer Christian Louboutin sued Yves St. Laurent for infringement stating that YSLs use of red colored soles in shades of red close to Louboutins’ violated its trademark won in ‘08. Despite…
Read MoreFor those worrying that the Great Recession may result in a lost decade, relax, it already has! Census has reported that real median household income is $49,445, back where it was in ’96, and 2.3% lower than ’09. The percentage…
Read MoreThe chances of a Greek default in the next 5 years is 98%. It now costs $5.8 million upfront and $100,000/year to insure $10 million of Greek debt for 5 years. This is because the austerity plan is failing, the…
Read MoreAfter spending so much to save the banks from collapse the government is now suing them for roughly $30 billion! That’s the amount lost by Fannie and Freddie and attributable to the big banks. Even if these suits have merit,…
Read MoreHurricane Irene has done immense damage to parts of the east coast. Clean up is estimated at upwards of $30 billion. Yet, this impact will be negligible on future GDP. This is because our economy is very large, about $15…
Read More