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


Euro Budget Craziness

05/15/2012

The European Stability and Growth Pact, that Germany is insisting on –-which requires governments to keep deficits to no more than 3% of GDP — is nuts. In good times, it promotes increased government spending but forces cuts in recessions.…

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Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News

05/14/2012

Over the next 20 years, 10K baby boomers turn 65 daily, doubling the number of Medicare enrollees. In part, that’s why annual Medicare spending is expected to reach an unsustainable $1 trillion by ’21; 20% of all government spending. While…

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Baby, Baby?

05/11/2012

The Friday File: Twin births in the US are soaring. In ’09, 1 in 30 babies born was a twin. In ’80 it was just 1 in 53! Why? Women in their 30s just have fraternal twins more often and…

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Bugs and Drugs

05/10/2012

Antibiotics (ABs) work against bacteria, not viruses. Yet out of ignorance, patients press doctors to prescribe ABs for viruses. Doctors do it to please ill-informed patients. Regrettably, this results in drug resistant bacteria; a terrifying public health hazard. The dilemma…

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The China Syndrome

05/09/2012

China’s economy must slow dramatically, here’s why. China’s growth over the last few decades has been based on huge government investment. But good projects are getting hard to find and rich countries are growing slowly, if at all. Thus exports…

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Give Me Your Tired…

05/08/2012

Christians, 33% of the world’s population, comprise half the world’s 214 Million Immigrants (MI). Muslims, 25% of the population, comprise 28% or 60 MI, Hindus, 15% of the population, comprise 5% or 11 MI, and Jews, 0.25% of the population,…

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School Rules

05/08/2012

While the labor market is improving, high school dropouts aren’t seeing it. For dropouts over 25, the unemployment rate is 13%, while it’s just 8.5% for high school grads and 4.2% for persons with a college degree or more. Worse,…

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PC Porn

05/04/2012

The Friday File: Of the million most popular websites, 4% are sex-related. If you count by search, about 10% to 15% of all searches are porn related. On a monthly basis, the most popular porn website regularly attracts 2.5% of…

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Death by Economy

05/03/2012

It’s known that mortality rates rise in economic expansions. Why? In better economic times, nursing care quality falls and since women use nursing homes at the end of their life way more than men, the bad care kills older women.…

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Underwater Houses

05/02/2012

Banks currently own 450,000 houses, 2 million are in foreclosure, and 1.7 million more have not had a mortgage payment made on them in 90 days. This adds up to 4.15 million houses. The problem is that the economy has…

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