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


Oh Canada!

12/20/2012

Having largely sidestepped the Great Recession, Canada is starting to look slightly shaky. House prices rose for the 19th straight month in October (been there) and household debt/GDP is 90% in Hockey Country while here it’s 77% after topping 90%…

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Criminal Incentives

12/19/2012

Last week, HSBC paid a $1.92 billion penalty for laundering money for murderers. Today, UBS is fined $1.5 billion for its part in rigging LIBOR over a multiyear period! While these banks will now “beef up their compliance procedures” and…

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Hooray for Housing!

12/18/2012

After a 15% rise in September, housing starts climbed less than 4% in October, with the entire rise due to a 12% jump in multifamily starts; single-family activity was unchanged. November starts are likely to be flat to marginally down…

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Week in Review

12/17/2012

Small business became much more pessimistic in November with the major small business index tumbling 5.6 points, the steepest one-month decline in history! Consumers are slightly more optimistic with retail sales climbing 0.3% in November, offsetting the 0.3% decline in…

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‘Mazing Messi

12/14/2012

The Friday File: Lionel Messi recently set a record by scoring his 86th goal in a calendar year for Barcelona and the Argentine national team combined. This broke the record of 85 set by West Germany’s Gerd Muller in 1972,…

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Angry in Athens

12/13/2012

By 12/31/13 the Greek economy will be 30% smaller than it was in 2008! And, it may not be done shrinking. Thus, the most recent Greek bailout is simply the latest “fix” with more to come! Worse, this tragedy becomes…

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Made in China

12/12/2012

The US trade deficit widened by $2 billion from September to October and now stands at $42.2 billion. While Sandy is partly to blame for some of the 3.2% decline in exports, so is a slowing global economy. This means…

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Doing the Laundry

12/11/2012

After failing to monitor trillions (with a T) in wire transfers over a period of years, from very unsavory characters and regimes, HSBC agreed to a $1.92 billion settlement. HSBC encouraged vast illegal transactions because there’s so much money to…

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Laboring On

12/10/2012

Last Friday’s mediocre employment report gives the Fed (meeting this week) ample reason to continue buying Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities at the rate of about $80 billion/month for the foreseeable future. As for the employment report, average hourly earnings rose…

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Bad Baby

12/07/2012

The Friday File: Male bosses with newborn daughters pay themselves 3.5% more than childless bosses; those with sons pay themselves 6.4% more! The problem is they take it out of the pay raises of their subordinates! If the boss has…

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