A common refrain about economic policy and performance in the United States over the past thirty years is that inequality is rising and the middle class is disappearing. The implication of the latter claim is […]
Read moreThis from a CNNMoney article: NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The International Monetary Fund said Monday that the global economy should continue to limp along at a modest pace, assuming leaders in Europe and the United […]
Read moreThe Labor Department’s Jobs report came out this morning at an 80,000 job increase for June, an 84,000 gain for the private sector and a 4,000 loss for the public sector. We had forecast a […]
Read moreJoe Mihalic is a recent graduate from the Harvard Business School (HBS) who managed to pay off $91,000 in student debt in seven months. He is currently enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame because he […]
Read moreThe Federal Reserve puts out two publications that address the level, change and composition of household net worth. The most widely known is the Household Balance Sheet table in the quarterly Flow of Funds (FOF) […]
Read moreTyler Cowen is a creative economist. Here, he proposes a novel approach to Europe. The key paragraph: Just to make the comparison biting, what if we postponed the costly benefits part of ACA for a […]
Read moreThe Obama Administration has seized upon a recent article in MarketWatch by Rex Nutting (here) that purports to show that federal spending growth under President Obama is the lowest of any Administration since Dwight D. […]
Read moreA major event in the financial markets last month was the initial public offering of FaceBook (ticker symbol FB). Despite the subsequent decline in price, the financial press reported that this IPO “instantly” created many […]
Read morePresident Obama tells us that the highest return investment you can make is in your own (or your children’s) education. The aggregate statistics appear to bear this out with college graduates earning about 50% more […]
Read moreAfter the market close last Thursday, JP Morgan Chase (JPM) announced that it had incurred a large loss in a “hedge” position. The loss is rumored to be approximately $2.3 billion. If it was truly […]
Read moreThe two candidates for president in this fall’s election had very different perspectives on last Friday’s jobs report. President Obama pointed to the 26th month in a row of private sector job gains and the […]
Read moreThis morning I ran across this piece on five people who have left the labor force. It a why-and-how-are-they-dealing-with-it type of thing. What struck me was that four of the five were either back in college or […]
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