So I am sure everyone has heard about the 45 million dollar global ATM Heist. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/nyregion/eight-charged-in-45-million-global-cyber-bank-thefts.html?hpw I am sure everyone has also heard about how the Pentagon has officially blamed China for hacking attacks, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/world/asia/us-accuses-chinas-military-in-cyberattacks.html?pagewanted=all We are also well aware of the continued efforts of “hacktivism” http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/15/anonymous-digital-culture-protest None of this should be [...] Read more »
What Fiscal Crisis?
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/05/01/180335095/the-federal-deficit-is-actually-shrinking NPR ran a piece on May 1st called, “The Federal Deficit Is Actually Shrinking”. Some excerpts, “During the housing bust, taxpayers were forced to bail out mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But thanks to the real estate recovery, Fannie Mae could end up paying tens of billions [...] Read more »
A Misplaced Responsibility.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/business/economy/fed-unlikely-to-expand-asset-purchases.html?hp A new piece in The New York Times talks about how although the economic recovery has failed to produce many jobs the Fed isn’t eager to do more to stimulate the economy. “The share of American adults with jobs has hovered around 58.5 percent for more than three years, [...] Read more »
Japanenomics Is The World’s Future.
For the last couple decades there has been worry that the U.S.might fall into a Japanese style deflationary spiral, the worries were misplaced, not because the U.S. won’t fall into such a trap but because it won’t just be the U.S. that falls into this trap, it will be the [...] Read more »
Strengthening Extended Families.
As government services become more strained due to budget constraints it will be necessary for families to be able to live together longer and with more members in a household. This is already common amongst many immigrant groups, even those of higher incomes, but it will have to become a part [...] Read more »
The Underground Economy.
The April 29th edition of The New Yorker ran a piece entitled The Underground Recovery, it is about the cash economy, its size and increasing scope. The piece primarily sites the work of economist Edgar Feige who has been investigating the cash economy for thirty five years. According to his [...] Read more »
A Shameful Day For The United States.
Once again the money won, in perhaps the most shameful exhibition of influence outside popular opinion imaginable. Of course I am referring to how the effort to expand background checks for gun purchases which went down in flames in the senate, 54 to 46, it wasn’t even close, this is while [...] Read more »
It’s All About The Energy.
In the 90s the U.S. economy was fueled largely by the IT revolution and Dot Com bubble, it would appear that the economy is now largely living off investment in new energy sources. In 2012 the economy grew by about 400 billion dollars in nominal terms from 15.4 trillion dollars [...] Read more »
Stabilization Without Change.
When The Great Depression occurred the first presidential election saw the U.S. elect a visionary and populist leader, one who instituted broad reforms and aggressively sought to change the way the financial community operated. These reforms helped maintain many decades of economic stability. Then the reforms began being rolled back, [...] Read more »
Living In The Bubble Economy.
Bernanke has made the statement that the Fed will work to hold down interest rates until employment improves, this is a scary scenario because the main thing such a policy will accomplish is the continued inflation of the bubble economy. At this point in time improvement in jobs numbers are [...] Read more »