The previously fast-growing US cell phone market is now fully saturated. Wireless carriers collectively lost 20,000 customers with long-term contracts (the most profitable segment) in Q1 ’12; the first decline ever. While this is partly due to holdouts that bought…
Depending on how you count, Subway is far and away the largest chain in the US with about 23K stores. McDonalds is a distant second at about 14K, Starbucks is third with 11K, Burger King follows at about 7K then…
The Friday File: Believe it or not, the former Comptroller of Dixon, IL is accused of embezzling $30 million (annual budget just $9 million) since ’06 to finance a lavish (you think?) lifestyle. Making things worse, the City spent about…
This recovery is anemic because total (household and government) debt is high and falling! Consumer credit actually declined by 2.5% in ’11 and total debt fell from 203% of GDP to 202% in ‘11; about $160,000/working age person. At the…
With tax reform in the air here are three principles economists want reform based on. 1) Broaden the base and lower rates. Lower marginal rates distort behavior less. 2) Tax consumption not income. Taxing income discourages savings, investment and work.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…