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QE is not “printing money” as it does not increase the amount of money in circulation. Handing out $100 bills would be printing money. By purchasing Treasuries and MBS, the Fed raises the price of those securities and thus lowers…
Read MoreIn recessions between 1950 and 1982, GDP always fell by more than employment, and as a result productivity per worker declined. Starting with the 1990-91 recession, things reversed. In that recession, GDP declined 1.2% yet employment fell by 1.7%. In…
Read MoreThe Friday File: The highest-priced stallion syndication was for Fusaichi Pegasus at a reported $60 million in 2000, while the record stud fee remains $500,000 for Northern Dancer in the mid-1980’s. The most paid for a thoroughbred at auction was…
Read MoreThe US trade deficit was $38.8 billion in August, virtually unchanged from July and has been hovering around $40 billion/month since early 2010. Before the Great Recession, it was about $60 billion/month. The difference, oil imports are down about $20…
Read MoreThe velocity of money is the number of times a unit of currency is used to buy domestically produced goods and services during a fixed period of time. The velocity of M1 (cash and checking accounts) has fallen by 38%…
Read MoreThe CPI is based on 83,300 price quotes/month, but because the government was closed for 11 working days in October, the sample will be based on 40,000 price quotes. Because price quotes for some items are collected bi-annually, it will…
Read MoreThe Friday file: Legislators in CA are paid best at $90,000/year, with PA second at about $83,000/year. NY is third at $79,000, followed by MI and IL at about $70,000/year. By contrast, NM pays legislators nothing, NH pays them $100/year,…
Read MoreYear-over-year inflation in Japan is now 0.9%. While not much, after decades of deflation, it’s good news. That said, most of the inflation is the result of higher energy and electricity prices, not wages. And higher energy costs are the…
Read MoreAfter reducing Q4 GDP by 0.5% or $20 billion and achieving no meaningful policy changes by forcing a government shutdown, Congress now promises to reward us with potentially more of the same in early Q1 2014! While this will hurt…
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