Looks like we’re headed for another, repetitive round of U.S.-China bickering over Chinese exports. The U.S. trade deficit with China in June rose to $26 billion, the widest gap in nearly two years. Meanwhile, the reform of China’s currency regime, announced by Beijing in June, has proven to be not much of a reform at [...]
If you were running a company and one of your employees went ballistic on a customer before loading up on booze and dramatically storming off, thus garnering national attention, what would you do? Probably not respond by a blog post that prominently features a clip from Office Space, the 1999 movie about the humiliations and [...]
Another day, another loser in the market. At least that’s how it feels. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 265 points, and now stands at just under 10,400. Yesterday, the Federal Reserve said that it plans to buy more Treasury Bonds in an effort to continue to stimulate the economy. And if the economy needs [...]
Investment manager John Michaelson has an interesting op-ed in today’s WSJ. He argues that super-low interest rates, which the Fed re-committed to yesterday, may be hindering, not helping, economic growth. There are plenty of reasons to not like low interest rates. For one thing, they help cause asset bubbles. For another, they hurt people and [...]
Once again, jitters are spreading through the world of food. Wheat prices have surged a terrifying 50% since early June, the biggest jump in 30 years, according to HSBC. Droughts in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, which together account for 26% of world wheat exports, are leading to fears of tight supply and super-charging prices. Russia’s [...]
The super-rich are very different than you and me, except that is when it comes to tax rates. Couples making $137,000 pay 25% of their income in federal taxes. But someone making 10 times that or $1.5 million a year, or for that matter $100 million, will pay 35%. Factor in the carried-interest break that [...]
I returned a few days ago from Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, where the talk of the town – well, at least among economists — is the “middle-income trap.” What’s that, you ask? A developing nation gets “trapped” when it reaches a certain, relatively comfortable level of income but can’t seem to take that [...]
What’s selling briskly at Starbucks and Whole Foods, makes cameo appearances on ‘Boston Legal’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, and is a hit on Google’s campus? Hint: It’s tasty water, without all the calories
It’s easy to rag on economics as not being a “real” science, and I try not to do things that are too easy. But in recent weeks I’ve really started to wonder. It is fascinating, and frightening, to me that smart economists can disagree about whether what the economy needs right now is more government [...]
Want to stimulate the economy and lower the foreclosure rate without adding a dime to the federal deficit. Not possible you say. Not so, says Morgan Stanley. Economists at the Wall Street firm are promoting what they are calling the Slam Dunk Stimulus plan, which they say could add $46 billion a year to the [...]
