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


Where’s baby?

04/17/2012

Teen births fell another 9% to just 34 births per 1,000 girls in ’10, and are now at the lowest rate since data collection began in ’40. Since ’91 teen births have fallen by 44%. Absent that fall, there would…

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Pyramid Scheme

04/16/2012

Egypt’s foreign reserves are shrinking fast, from $36 billion in late ’10 to just $15 billion now. FRs are declining because foreign currency earned through tourism has collapsed. If this trend is not soon reversed the Egyptian pound will have…

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Odd Indicators

04/13/2012

The Friday File: Economists use many indicators to estimate economic activity. Here are some of the oddest. Times are bad when; there is a spike in the reselling of cemetery plots, when the number of NFL games that are not…

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Taxing Policy

04/12/2012

The brain-dead DC Cab Commission recently decided to let hackers charge a dollar for each additional person only if they drive a van. This will, at the margin, cause large groups to squeeze into smaller cabs while letting individual riders…

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It’s a Gas!

04/11/2012

With the price of natural gas ($2.20/million BTUs) plumbing depths not seen in a decade, and the price of diesel fuel nearing an all-time high, Shell (and other large oil companies) are finally considering investing the necessary $10-$15 billion to…

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Zombie Banks

04/10/2012

Spanish bond yields are up again as the short term benefits of the ECBs massive, easy-money lending program (LTRO) dissipate, and the reality of a recession in Euroland sets in. Making things worse, some European banks used the cheap 1%…

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Barely Better

04/09/2012

Not only did employers create just 120K jobs in March but, average weekly hours worked fell from 34.6 to 34.5, average weekly wages fell from $807.56 to $806.96, temp employment fell by 7.5K, retail trade shed 33.8K workers and the…

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Betting on the House

04/06/2012

The Friday File: In an inexplicable move, the CFTC denied a request by the North American Derivatives Exchange to offer futures contracts on which party will win control of the House, Senate and White House. The CFTC said these derivates…

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Not A Lotto Money

04/05/2012

While income tax and sales tax revenues declined 10% in the past recession, regressive lotto sales fell just 2%, making them recession resistant. New research shows that as jackpots grow, lotteries become less regressive as more upper income households are…

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Banking the Bucks

04/04/2012

Despite what you think, monetary policy has not been expansionary, and that’s the problem. While the Fed’s assets grew from $0.8 trillion to $2.8 trillion between 10/08 and 7/11, it was matched, almost dollar for dollar, by a $1.6 trillion…

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