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


Sugar High

03/20/2013

To prevent defaults by sugar processors that borrowed $862 million under a government price-support system, the USDA may purchase 400,000 tons of sugar to prop up prices. Sugar has fallen 18% to 21.03 cents/lb since the loans were made last…

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Cash Crunch

03/19/2013

The Cyprus fiasco shows us two things. First, countries that don’t issue their own currency simply cannot guarantee bank deposits as they have no control over their monetary policy. It also shows that monetary unions cannot survive bank runs. The…

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Strong Week

03/18/2013

Retail sales jumped a strong 0.4%, even after subtracting high gas prices, higher building material prices, and autos and groceries. Industrial production was up and is nearing its pre-recession peak and the four-week moving average of initial weekly unemployment claims…

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Leapin’ Leprechauns

03/15/2013

The Friday File: On St. Patrick’s Day we drink 1% of all beer consumed in America, which equals 1.62 pints per/person, so drink up! 34.5 million Americans claim Irish ancestry which is seven times the population of Ireland. The total…

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Government as Insurer

03/14/2013

Our government runs the FDIC to protect us from bank failures, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation to protect our pensions, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare to protect our health, FHA, Fannie and Freddie to guarantee our mortgages, Social Security to protect…

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Minimal Migration

03/13/2013

Youth unemployment in Spain is 56%, in Greece it is 58%, while in Germany it’s 8%. This should cause a mass influx of youth from these peripheral countries to Germany. Surprisingly, it’s not. Between 1/12 and 6/12 just 3,900 Spaniards…

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Pollution Problems

03/12/2013

The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emitted in 2011 rose by 3% (a billion tons) from 2010 to 38.2 billion tons. Of the planet’s top 10 polluters, only the USA and Germany reduced emissions. China emitted 10 billion tons, up…

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Work? No Thanks

03/11/2013

While the February unemployment rate eased from 7.92% to 7.74%, 40% of the fall resulted from a decline in the civilian labor force of 130,000 due to both the weak economy and retiring Boomers. As a result, the labor force…

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Number Games

03/08/2013

The Friday File: Despite being spectacularly counterintuitive, Benford’s Law states that leading digits (the number 8 in 8,456) are unevenly distributed. Benford found that one is the leading digit 31% of the time, two 17% of the time, three 12.5%,…

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Fisher at the Fed?

03/07/2013

With Bernanke’s term at the Fed up in January, Obama will have to name a successor. That person should be Stan Fisher. In addition to having an outstanding record as Governor of the Bank of Israel, he’s a skilled diplomat,…

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