Archive | Economics

RSS feed for this section

Before I forget it …

By on May 18, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion, Politics

I just heard a remarkable fact: Mark Zuckerberg is now worth more than the bottom 1/5 of US families put together. Time we insisted on the statisticians ignoring the mean and model financial averages and presenting the modal average. It looks to me, for instance, that the modal average (the value with them peak representation) [...]

Read full story • Comments { 10 }

Guns and butter and jobs.

By on May 11, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion, Politics

With the automatic cuts looming in defense spending as a result of the budget “agreement” the Republican are digging in their heels and making the case that cuts should be made in other government programs rather than in the defense. This would cause cuts in programs that help a great many people. In reference to this I [...]

Read full story • Comments { 3 }

There’s inflation and then there’s inflation.

By on May 10, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

We tend to think of inflation being sort of the same in the different times it occurs but there is a real difference between supply/demand driven inflation and currency debasement driven inflation. Now if you have inflation, so a loaf of bread costs twice as much, but a lot more loaves of bread are being sold [...]

Read full story • Comments { 4 }

The cost vs. benefit of national security.

By on May 10, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

The recent foiled “underwear” bomber plot got me thinking about how much it costs us to catch these people. If we add up everything we’ve spent chasing terrorists including and aside from the two wars, all the intelligence gathering, all the extra security throughout society, all the costs of various operations I really find it hard [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Charlie Munger said…

By on May 7, 2012 in Economics, Human Behavior

In discussing programmed trading, Charlie Munger said: “Those people have all the social utility of a bunch of rats who break into a granary.” Thank you, Charlie. That is priceless. A subject of some concern among both CNBC commentators and market-centered guests is the very low participation of the retail investors. The most significant comment [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Tomorrow, on Monday, May 7th, the US stock market will take a big hit.

By on May 6, 2012 in Economics, Human Behavior

The reason will be that the French and the Greeks appear to have unseated a couple of the governments which imposed or promoted austerity, which most of the major US market mavens have been saying, for weeks, is completely the wrong way to go. I guess the message is that they are so convinced of [...]

Read full story • Comments { 9 }

Corporate taxes.

By on May 4, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion, Politics

There has been and continues to be a lot of debate amongst people as to whether or not a corporate tax rate should exist, there is a piece now over at Project Syndicate about this issue. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-corporate-tax-conundrum These arguments seem to center around a couple things, one that taxing corporations amounts to double taxation, another that it [...]

Read full story • Comments { 3 }

Oh, no! Not another conspiracy theory.

By on May 3, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion, Politics

Well, yes; I have another conspiracy theory. It is that those giants of industry who are supporting the Republicans in the coming elections will use their control of major employers to force a basically growing economy into retreat. They can do this through sudden layoffs, inventory reductions, reduction in advertising, shifting operations offshore, constraining resource [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

How are you preparing for retirement?

By on May 2, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion, Human Behavior

I know what my wife and I did, but that was then and this is now. We were both able to build up future income in non-contributary (mostly) defined benefit pensions. Of course, we both paid into Social Security and Medicare for decades. My wife now receives my spousal benefit rather than her own because [...]

Read full story • Comments { 5 }

A Simple Email to Another Blogger on the Issues of Today’s Labor Market

By on May 1, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

Daniel: I believe  you are understanding it and this is what I go round and round with economists such as Thoma and Spencer who believe the free (sigh) market will correct it and itself in the next generation. It will not and this is a global economics war we are in today. Yves Smith understands the [...]

Read full story • Comments { 4 }