The Bowtie Economist's Daily Dose of 70-Word Wisdom

The Friday File: 77% of all revenue from recorded music goes to the top 1% of bands and solo artists. The 10 best-selling tracks now generate 82% more sales than 10 years ago, while the top 10 songs receive twice…

While the rest of the planet economically cools or worse, goes into reverse, today’s data shows that the US economy is doing well. First-time weekly claims for unemployment insurance fell and are remarkably low, existing home sales rose 1.5% and…

The annual FY14 FHA audit finds that it went from having net worth of negative $1.1 billion to positive $4.8 billion and now has a capital reserve of 0.41%, or a leverage ratio of 243! Because of this “success” some…

While US exports are weakening, don’t worry. Exports account for just 14% of US GDP, less than for any other developed nation. Exports account for 30% of Canadian GDP, 51% of German GDP, 15% of Japanese GDP, and 53% of…

In a very close election, Brazilians recently re-elected Dilma Rouseff. The result: the Brazilian real fell 2% and is near a 10-year low, and the stock market fell almost 3%. Worse, Brazilian sovereign debt is close to being downgraded to…

There are currently 18 million male veterans, 15.6% of the male population, and 1.6 million female veterans. 7 million served in Vietnam, 5.2 million served in the Gulf War Era (8/90 through today), 1.3 million in WWII, 2.1 million in…