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


Representative Salaries

10/18/2013

The Friday file: Legislators in CA are paid best at $90,000/year, with PA second at about $83,000/year. NY is third at $79,000, followed by MI and IL at about $70,000/year. By contrast, NM pays legislators nothing, NH pays them $100/year,…

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Land of Rising Inflation

10/17/2013

Year-over-year inflation in Japan is now 0.9%. While not much, after decades of deflation, it’s good news. That said, most of the inflation is the result of higher energy and electricity prices, not wages. And higher energy costs are the…

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Insanity Defined

10/16/2013

After reducing Q4 GDP by 0.5% or $20 billion and achieving no meaningful policy changes by forcing a government shutdown, Congress now promises to reward us with potentially more of the same in early Q1 2014! While this will hurt…

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Nobel Winners

10/15/2013

In an odd choice, the Royal Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize in economics to Eugene Fama, whose life’s work shows that markets are rational in the short run, to Robert Shiller, who says that markets are often irrational over…

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Debt Default

10/14/2013

If the US defaults, short-term Treasuries, the most traded and liquid securities in the world and which often act as collateral for loans to banks and central banks, would lose their cash equivalence. This would immediately boost interest rates demanded…

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Sudsy Sales

10/11/2013

The Friday File: The economy is improving! Beer volume rose 1.2% in 2012, to 2.8 billion cases – that’s 210 beers/person, pushing revenues up 3.5% to $62.3 billion. This largely makes up for the 1.3% decline in beer volume in…

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Terrific Tax

10/10/2013

Among the demands the Republicans have put forward to end the government shutdown is repeal of the 2.5% medical device tax which took effect 1/1/13. It is a spectacular tax because no one will change their behavior because of it.…

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Taper Tiger

10/09/2013

Given the government closure and resulting lack of economic data, the fact that Q3 GDP growth will be below 2% and that inflation remains very tame, virtually guarantees that tapering will not commence following the conclusion of the late October…

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Women’s Work

10/08/2013

Full-time working women earned 76.5 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2012, virtually unchanged from 2011. Interestingly, pay gaps are narrowing for all but the youngest. Women 25 to 44 earned 80 cents, up from 74 cents in…

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Debt Ceiling Catastrophe

10/07/2013

The government shutdown, if short, will mildly depress Q4 GDP growth. The same can’t be said for failing to raise the debt ceiling. The government currently runs a $640 billion deficit/year, 4% of GDP, while GDP growth is 2%. If…

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