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A recent paper by three economists shows that Palestinian terrorist attacks that killed Jewish Israelis (civilian and military, in Israel the West Bank and Gaza) between ’02 and ‘04 had no effect, immediate or delayed, on the happiness of Jewish…
West Texas Intermediate crude sells for $106/barrel while North Sea Brent sells for $125. Normally, they are similarly priced. The current gap exists because of a lack of pipeline capacity out of Cushing, OK. (where physical delivery of oil occurs).…
The share of the unemployed out of work six months or longer has been stuck above 40% for two years. Therefore, some states are considering legislation making it illegal for firms to discriminate against the unemployed. This well-intended approach will…
The Friday File: Opium production in Afghanistan jumped 61% in ’11 to 5,800 metric tons. The farm value is $1.4 billion, 9% of GDP! The street value, which includes profits for the Taliban, refiners, warlords, politicians and cartels, is much…
The unemployment rate is falling fast, but for the wrong reasons. In 1/12 the labor force participation rate was 63.7%, the lowest level since ’82 and way below the 66% when the recession began. Had the LFPR rate not fallen,…
Romney will win the Republican nomination. So far, 582 delegates (25% of the 2,286 total) have been awarded. Romney has won 331, or 57%, while Santorum has picked up 139, or 24%. With 1,704 delegates left to award, Santorum must…
The ’12 London Summer Olympics will bring little if any net benefits. Sure, 40K athletes and coaches will come, but regular tourists will stay away, bookings are already down, and 20% of locals plan to be out of town to…
Vaccine shortages; This industry has very high fixed costs to develop a vaccine (labs are costly), high fixed costs to produce a batch (it takes about a year), trivial marginal costs to make an extra dose within a batch (increasing…
The Friday File: McDonald’s is pushing its pork suppliers to stop confining breeding sows, of which there are 5.7 million, in gestation stalls, and instead place them in large pens. While this sounds great, it costs money and studies show…
In Europe, Mario Draghi, the head of the ECB, is flooding banks with a $1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) at 1% in an effort to recapitalize them and maintain liquidity. Many banks are using this money to buy sovereign debt…