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


Can I Interest you?

09/22/2011

While low interest rates are designed to encourage consumers and businesses to borrow and invest (with little success) the policy has hurt millions of older and retired persons. With money market funds paying 0.10%, 5-yr Treasuries paying 1.0% and 10-yr…

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Well Bowl me Over

09/21/2011

Recently there has been massive realignment in college football resulting in fewer “major” conferences with more teams. I wonder if Congress will get involved. Might a Senator from a jilted school get the DOJ/FTC to investigate the idea that these…

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The Shrinking Work Weak

09/20/2011

The August Employment Report showed the average work week for all employees on private non-farm payrolls fell by 0.1 hour to 34.2 hours. While seemingly uneventful, the decline equates to the loss of 325,000 jobs across the broad economy. The…

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Risky Business

09/19/2011

The recent $2.3 billion trading loss reported by UBS begs the question, what are these guys doing? The activity is called Delta One (D1) trading and involves trading derivatives. It’s appealing because buying derivatives is more lucrative than buying the…

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Put on Your Red Shoes and Dance the Blues

09/16/2011

The Friday File: Can you trademark a color? Shoe manufacturer Christian Louboutin sued Yves St. Laurent for infringement stating that YSLs use of red colored soles in shades of red close to Louboutins’ violated its trademark won in ‘08. Despite…

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Honey, I Shrunk the Paycheck!

09/15/2011

For those worrying that the Great Recession may result in a lost decade, relax, it already has! Census has reported that real median household income is $49,445, back where it was in ’96, and 2.3% lower than ’09. The percentage…

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Greeks Bearing Gifts

09/14/2011

The chances of a Greek default in the next 5 years is 98%. It now costs $5.8 million upfront and $100,000/year to insure $10 million of Greek debt for 5 years. This is because the austerity plan is failing, the…

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Losing While Winning

09/13/2011

After spending so much to save the banks from collapse the government is now suing them for roughly $30 billion! That’s the amount lost by Fannie and Freddie and attributable to the big banks. Even if these suits have merit,…

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Hurricane Irene; Forecast to do Little for GDP

09/12/2011

Hurricane Irene has done immense damage to parts of the east coast. Clean up is estimated at upwards of $30 billion. Yet, this impact will be negligible on future GDP. This is because our economy is very large, about $15…

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UN UNbelievable!

09/09/2011

The Friday File: The UN has decided to limit the reports it publishes to a maximum of 10,700 words. They are doing it to save $ and reduce burden on translation services. This will also save a lot of diplomat’s…

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