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

The Friday File: While the number of close friends we have averages three, and the number of people we call friends is about 150 (also known as the Dunbar number), the number of people we know, including persons we see…

In 2019, UPS delivered 4.7 billion domestic packages, FedEx delivered 3 billion, and Amazon 1.9 billion. Last year, UPS distributed 5.3 billion, Amazon 5.2 billion and FedEx 3.3 billion. With UPS and FedEx volumes expected to be flat in 2023…

In 10/23, net job growth was relatively weak at 150,000. Moreover, most of the gains were in just three sectors, healthcare (58,000), government (51,000), and leisure & hospitality (19,000). While job growth will likely slow in the latter two categories,…

In 2022, philanthropic giving totaled $499.3 billion. Individuals gave $319 billion, foundations $105 billion, bequests $46 billion, and corporations $29 billion. Contributions declined 3.4% from 2021 and 10.5% after inflation, the biggest decline since the Great Recession. Charitable giving meaningfully…

With FTX exposed as fraudulent, and Binance as a money laundering operation, large, monopolistic, hugely profitable crypto exchanges must become legitimate actors. Binance’s settlement with the U.S. Treasury requiring it to create true anti-money laundering systems, and in the process,…

This Thanksgiving, 46 million turkeys (half of all turkeys sold) costing $1.3 billion will be consumed, and 88% of Americans will partake in a turkey dinner. While the average price of a 16 pound bird rose 1.3% compared to last…

Walmart, the biggest retailer in the U.S., has 1.5 million U.S. employees, enough to make it the 41st largest state. In FYE 1/23, Walmart had sales revenue of $606 billion, which would (pardon the apples to oranges comparison) make it…

The U.S. economy is becoming increasingly recession resistant. State, local, and federal government spending as a percentage of GDP has risen from 29% in 1962 to 35% today. Similarly, healthcare spending has risen from 5.2% of GDP in 1962 to…

The Friday File: Prior to Taylor Swift/The Eras Tour, the top grossing concert film of all time was Justin Bieber: Never Say Never with $73 million in 2011, followed by Michael Jackson’s This Is It which grossed $72.1 million in…

In the 1998 Microsoft antitrust case, Microsoft forced PC makers not to install competitive internet browsers if they wanted Windows desktop software to crush competition. In Google’s current antitrust case, we now know that Google paid Apple/Samsung/Motorola/AT&T/T-Mobile/Mozilla and many others…