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


Dr. Copper

04/23/2014

Copper is frequently referred to as Dr. Copper because of its perceived ability to predict future economic activity due its many industrial uses ranging from power generation to new home wiring. Sudden increases in demand can result in higher copper…

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Record Recovery

04/22/2014

The current recovery is now 59 months old, the average length of all post WWII expansions. The last three recoveries have been much longer; 92 months, 120 months and 73 months respectively. This recovery will also be a very long…

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Improving Indicators

04/21/2014

With output at US factories, mines and utilities at an all-time high and capacity utilization at 79.2%, tantalizing close to the 80% level at which firms invest in new plant, increased capital spending will singlehandedly boost GDP by 0.25%, or…

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Pet People

04/18/2014

The Friday file: While Americans own 96 million cats and 83 million dogs, more families have dogs than cats. It’s is because 70% of dog owners have just one dog, while just 45% of cat owners have a single cat.…

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Quirky Quarter

04/17/2014

After expanding at an annualized pace of 4.1% in Q3 and 2.4% in Q4, expect Q1 GDP to come in below 1.5% and that’s an improvement based on stronger March data. Q1 will be weak because of dismal weather, very…

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Eastern Enemies

04/16/2014

While hostilities along the Ukraine-Russian border appear to be heating up, expect markets to ignore it. Absent direct US or EU involvement, this conflict has virtually no relevance to western markets. This is similar to Syria, where once US involvement…

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Total Taxes

04/15/2014

In 2013, federal government receipts (think taxes) totaled $2.778 trillion, while spending was $3.455 trillion, resulting in a 2013 deficit of $679.5 billion– 4.1% of GDP. The largest deficit ever was in 1943 during WWII when inflation adjusted; receipts were…

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Rising Reserves

04/14/2014

With an increase of 4.5 billion barrels of crude oil in 2012, America’s proven reserves are now 33 billion barrels, their highest level since 1976 and have been rising since 2009. Moreover, the increase in reserves in 2012 was the…

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Degrees of Separation

04/11/2014

The Friday File: In 1960, among married couples 21% of the time one spouse was better educated than the other; two-thirds of the time it was the husband. By 1990, 38% of married couples were unequally educated and 60% of…

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Bad Buying

04/10/2014

For the 12 months ending 1/31/14, S&P 500 firms spent $478 billion buying back outstanding shares, and in the quarter ending 1/31/14 spending on buybacks rose 29% compared to a year earlier. Seems the higher the stock price, the more…

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