Japan Ignores the Laws of Economics
What’s wrong with this story? Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) — Japan, the world’s largest pork importer, will purchase about 70,000 swine carcasses from local herds to boost prices after an economic slump cut consumption and sent stockpiles to a 20-year high. The government will allocate 292.9 million yen ($3.3 million) for a support program including assisting .. read more
Greg Mankiw Dreams of Speechwriting
Greg Mankiw offers this as President Obama’s next speech: “There has been a lot of talk lately about taxing Cadillac health plans. Well, I have thought about this idea, and I have talked with my economic advisers, and we have decided that it indeed makes a lot of sense. “Now some of you may wonder .. read more
Update – World Allocation – 9/23
The World Allocation model portfolio has recently been updated. Changes to the model include as follows: Buy Cash Raise from 0.0% to 13.0% Sell FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index FXI Reduce from 10.0% to 5.0% Sell S&P 500 Index IVV Reduce from 15.0% to 10.0% Sell Dow Jones Copper Sub-Index [[JJC]] Reduce from 3.0% to 0.0% The .. read more
America’s Abundant Energy
Yes, you read that title right. America has plenty of energy available that would allow us to drastically reduce the amount of oil that we import. The economic and geo political consequences of better exploiting our own natural resources are huge. For cheap fuel, natural gas offers the greatest potential (via NPR): In recent years, .. read more
It’s a Good Thing Steven Chu Knows What’s Good For Us
The Energy Secretary had this to say about Americans and energy usage (via WSJ): When it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions, Energy Secretary Steven Chu sees Americans as unruly teenagers and the Administration as the parent that will have to teach them a few lessons. Speaking on the sidelines of a smart grid conference in Washington, .. read more
Taxes and Dollar Devaluation in the Depression
Art Laffer has an Op-Ed in the WSJ today that blames the length of the Great Depression on high taxes and currency devaluation. If he’s correct, Bernanke learned nothing from his years of studying the Depression. The tax increases of the Hoover and FDR administrations are well known and the effect obvious, but the role .. read more
The Debt Bomb
Richard Rahn of the Cato Institute has an article at the Washington Times called The Growing Debt Bomb which details the growing US government debt. His conclusion is not comforting: What is particularly frightening is that neither political party has offered a serious plan to defuse the debt bomb. The Democrats are just piling up .. read more
The Global Competitiveness Report
Despite our neighbors’ extensive economic struggles across the pond, Europe seems to be the place to be, as 6 of the top 10 countries were atop the rankings in the World Economic Forum’s 2009-2010 edition of the Global Competitiveness Report. Switzerland managed to replace the United States atop the report, due to a weakening in the US financial markets and macroeconomic stability. (This .. read more
