The Wonderful World of Economics

Over $5 for a Big Mac! Iceland's economy hit hard

2009-10-31T21:32:00.004-04:00

The whole world has been hit hard by this recession but Iceland has been hit extra hard.

The value of there currency the Krona, has dropped over 70% since 2008. To but it in simple turns the cost of Big Mac in Iceland would be 650 krona or $5.50 in US dollars.

Elinor Ostrom becomes the first woman to win a the Nobel Prize in Economics

2009-10-12T14:17:00.002-04:00

big congratulation to Elinor Ostrom who becomes the first woman to win the Nobel Economic Prize. She wins the award along with Oliver Williamson.

Ostrom one the award for her study on public commons and how commons made open to everyone to use can become abused and how people self govern to make sure that doesn't happen.

Williamson studied why business organized in the ways that they do.

Free Trade cartoons

2009-09-22T17:49:00.003-04:00

Here are a few political cartoons (some interactive) dealing with the subject of Free Trade by Mike Thompson.

check them out here

The Black Depression

2009-09-14T16:20:00.002-04:00

The New York times ran an op-ed piece on Saturday written by Barbra Ehrencreich and Dedrick Muhammad on the current recession is effecting people differently based on race (well just Black and White)

I titled this post The Black Depression because of this bit of the article.

In fact, you could say that for African-Americans the recession is over. It occurred from 2000 to 2007, as black employment decreased by 2.4 percent and incomes declined by 2.9 percent. During those seven years, one-third of black children lived in poverty, and black unemployment — even among college graduates — consistently ran at about twice the level of white unemployment.

That was the black recession. What’s happening now is more like a depression.

something I found interesting was this bit about how the Black Church became part of the problem we are all in due to the recession as well as showing a bit of racism from the people at Wells Fargo.

At Wells Fargo, Elizabeth Jacobson, a former loan officer at the company, recently revealed — in an affidavit in a lawsuit by the City of Baltimore — that salesmen were encouraged to try to persuade black preachers to hold “wealth-building seminars” in their churches. For every loan that resulted from these seminars, whether to buy a new home or refinance one, Wells Fargo promised to donate $350 to the customer’s favorite charity, usually the church. (Wells Fargo denied any effort to market subprime loans specifically to blacks.) Another former loan officer, Tony Paschal, reported that at the same time cynicism was rampant within Wells Fargo, with some employees referring to subprimes as “ghetto loans” and to minority customers as “mud people.

but I think this line about the fact that really the reason this recession is effecting African Americans worst is...

If any cultural factor predisposed blacks to fall for risky loans, it was one widely shared with whites — a penchant for “positive thinking” and unwarranted optimism,

the problem as pointed in the article was that we all maybe be overly optimistic but African Americans have had a history of being discriminated from in the banking and mortgage sector for a long time and it still continues today but instead of being denied a loan they get improved for one under worst terms then others get.

Is the Recession increasing drug use?

2009-08-29T21:01:00.003-04:00

In a recent study reported on by the BBC 95% of the dollar bills in DC have traces of cocaine on them and other major cities in America have similar numbers. This is up 20% form two years ago, the reason is thought to be due to people turning to drugs to get away from the stress of the recession.

I can't help but to think that if this is true and the reason drug use is up right now is due to the poor economy, then really the best thing for these people to do is to take the money they spend on drugs and spend them in other parts of the economy we could get a nice little boost. thought I guess even if the money is going into the black market it will end up in the main economy eventually (drug dealers do buy things)

Cash for clunkers failure of success?

2009-08-23T16:52:00.003-04:00

The Cash for clunkers (officially called Car Allowance Rebate System or CARS) program comes to an end Monday.

Looking at the coverage of the is program I was always surprised with the number of people that thought the program was failing.

looking at the goal of the program that is far the from the cause.

The program was in acted because car sales where lagging and dealerships across the nation had lots full of cars that they couldn't sale.

This program was enacted to move those cars, as well as make sure people upgrade to more fuel efficient cars.

and under those terms the program worked, car sells went up enough that American car companies re-open some car plants that they had closed. Putting people back to work.

in fact it work so well that the CARS program ran out of money because they the demand was much higher then they thought and the government needed to add money to make sure the program could make it to it's end date. Maybe that's the closet thing this program was to a failure, if you count reaching your set goals at much faster rate then you thought you would as being a failure.

But with the program coming to and what do you think was Cash for clunkers a success or a failure?

Free by Chris Anderson Is giving stuff away really the new economic model?

2009-08-21T20:30:00.003-04:00

Here is the first 50 something pages of Chris Anderson's book Free.

in the book Anderson talks about how giving stuff away is revolutionary (not so) new economic model

Hacking Wallstreet

2009-07-18T15:12:00.004-04:00

many big investing companies such as Goldman Sachs use computer programs to buy and sell stocks and commodities. These programs agergate data (such as the news) to know when is the best time to buy and sell. This allows them to be a head of the average investor.

Goldman Sachs has the best of these programs and they use it to buy stocks a few milliseconds after news that will make the stock go up hits and sell as soon as their is an up tick in the stock.

it seems that a former employee of Goldman Sachs named Serge Aleynikov (who maybe the same Serge Aleynikov in this linkedin page) stole the code.

well at first Serge Aleynikov says it was an accident and he was only downloading open source information but it seems that he tried to erase his trail by deleting his bach files but he didn't realize Goldman sachs saves that information.

though Serge Aleynikov did send the info he retained German website, owned by a person in London. That plus his Russian background leads some to think that was a plot of international espionage and some fear that people could use this program to manipulate the market (of course I'm not sure why one should feel much safer knowing a company can manipulate the market vs people in a different country)

Serge Aleynikov also has had history of IP violation in the past including a case in 1997
Aleynikov Pacer

after leaving Goldman Sachs Serge Aleynikov went to work for Teza Technologies, LLC, in Chicago. They paid him 3 times what he made at Goldman Sachs. It's easy to wonder if they have any part in this or was Serge Aleynikov just looking for the next company to work for and maybe still sensitive information from.

recently Serge Aleynikov has been released on bond. but I don't think he is no longer dancing (like he was with wife in this video...both enjoy ballroom dancing)

Goldman Sachs blowing the bubbles that drive and crash our economy

2009-07-15T18:51:00.002-04:00

here is a very interesting article from Rolling Stone magazine about Goldman Sachs that covers the investment's company's long history of driving and creating bubbles in the economy to turn a huge profit.

the article is by Matt Taibbi who's been doing a lot of writing about Goldman Sachs on True/slant

The article paints Goldman Sachs as being the driving force behind the current recession and the 90's internet bubble and shows the next bubble you either want to look out for or try to invest in before it pops.

and speaking about Goldman Sachs you may want to see what investor Mike Morgan has to say about them on his site

the real reason the economic stimulus package hasn't pulled us out of a recession yet (and when we well likely get out of the recession)

2009-07-12T18:11:00.007-04:00

I've notice a lot of talk about the fact that the Economic Stimulus package hasn't worked to get us out of this recession.

Of course politicians that voted against the stimulus are saying they would have done better and there's even talk of a need for a second stimulus plan to be run (oddly enough some of the people saying this disagreed with the ideal of a stimulus in the first place)

These views are over looking something very big, either out impatient (really do people think the economy would turn so extremely that we would go to record job lose to job gains in a few months) or they are using this as a political ploy.

The truth is that out of the nearly $787 billion stimulus under 10% of the funds have been used for anything.

Why?

the money is select to be spent in a number of areas. They have a number of project that haven't yet (or just starting to) get of the ground. There is also money for States to spend in certain areas but no states have really done any big project yet because they didn't have enough time, and from what I've seen most things wont be able to get of the ground until 2010 or so.

it takes time to get infrastructure projects off the ground. it takes time for people to go through the education and training that have been set, ect.

Because of this fact I don't think we well get out of the Recession (or the so called real recession which basically means the average Joe and Jane well start doing well economically) in 2010 or 2011.

Retail in Detroit: problem or opportunity?

2009-06-18T15:09:00.015-04:00

The Wallstreet Journal has a piece about lack of national retail chains in the city of Detroit.

it goes in how lack of retailers is a problem for the city and that true, the city could use a lot more retailers but article focuses on national chain stores only and that misses a lot of the business in the city.

Just because there aren't national grocery stores doesn't mean their are there aren't grocery stores in the D or place to get fresh fruit's and vegetables in Motown

Even though a lot of business stay away form Detroit due to it image and that has effect the city negatively, there are still many small mom and pop business that run in the city.

And maybe having local chains and mom & pop store instead of having big box stores coming into the city is actually a good thing for Detroit.

I've notice that when a big chain comes to one's area people tend to think about the fact that those stores will lead to new jobs. The truth is that these stores usually end up killing of local small business (by lowering prices until the mom & pop stores can't compete) and doing so probably just shift as much jobs (the people that worked at the local store have to get a job somewhere) more then they create new ones.

also it has been shown that stores such as walmart actually cost tax payers, giving that many cities give those types of stores big tax breaks hoping to get them to build in their town and yet in causes like wallmart their jobs or so low paying or give such bad health coverage that many of their employers have to be placed on welfare.

also by their nature of having head quarters in other part of the country (or even world) big chain retailers actually end up funnel money out side of the city their stores are in.

With a track record like that I have a hard time seeing why the lack of such a store is seen as a bad thing, when it seems not having stores like this would be a good thing for local economies.

Instead of looking at the fact that Detroit doesn't have big chain stores in the city as a problem for the city, the lack of these stores should be seen as a clean(er) slate that the city can build a good economy on by fostering local and small business and it this should also be a place for people who want to start to business or co-op to go to.

it seems that the city of Detroit is actually trying to build it's local business base with a number of programs

A Huge BRIC crashes through the world of politics and economics

2009-06-18T08:45:00.000-04:00

Brazil, Russia, India and China for of the worlds largest emerging economies have formed a political bloc called BRIC.

together these nations make up 15% of the worlds GDP and 40% of the world population.

BRIC will work together to pull out their plan to fix the world economic crisis at the next G20 summit.

Obama puts in strong new regulations of the finical industry

2009-06-17T16:08:00.002-04:00

President Obama just got his Warren G on and has announced plans for a number of new regulations on the finical system.

formerly unregulated fields such as hedge funds, venture capital funds, credit default swaps and private equity funds will no be regulated by the fed.

there will be a consumer protection agency that will deal with regulating the consumer credit industry and hopefully will cut down on lending abuse many people have gone through.

the plan will close down the Office of Thrift Supervision.

The Federal Reserve of finical companies that are so large that if they go under they could take the economy down with them (the ones they called to big to fail)

the plan will also put a check on the Federal Reserve by putting a rule in place that if the feds want to infuse any bail out capital to a finical company they have to get the OK from the Treasury Department.

also banks will have higher capital requirements.

and that just part of it. But as stated this is jut Obama's plan, there surely will be some changes once to gets voted on by congress but this is a big change to the ways have been done since Reagan was in office. It a shift form deregulation to putting some more rules back in place and I honestly have to say that this may be a good ideal. Even thought I think there should be some market freedom, the push for deregulation has gone a bit over board, we need rules or we could in end in market chaos.

The S&P has down graded banks ratings once the news of this plan was released.

10 top banks are giving the ok to repay "bailout" loan

2009-06-09T17:12:00.003-04:00

after the government ran it's stress test it now feels that it is ok for Northern Trust Corp, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., American Express Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., U.S. Bancorp, Capital One Financial Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Corp., State Street Corp. and BB&T Corp are in good enough shape that they can repay back the $68 billion they received in the controversial bailout loan the banking industry received.

I am sure most people will see this as good news because when the tarp plain was unless it seem most people didn't like the ideal of bailing out the banks that are only in trouble because of their practices and the banks bulked at the ideal that they would have to fallow the governments rules since they had to take the money from the bailout.

and it should be noted that these are the biggest banks to be seen as fit enough to repay their bailout, before them 22 smaller banks where giving the ok.

job losses go down yet unemployment is still going up

2009-06-05T20:02:00.002-04:00

earlier today the new numbers for job cuts and the unemployment rate has been released.

it seems in may companies cut 340,000 jobs this less then the the expected 500,000 job loses.

at the same time the unemployment rate is up 1/2 a percent in May, which means at least 9.4 of Americans that are able to work are unemployed.

while looking at a few places online and listening to the radio it seems that a few people are confused by how unemployment can be up while the companies are cutting less jobs last month. the answer is simple, people are still losing their jobs and those figures will show up in the unemployment figures.

it should also noted that there may have been people that have lost their jobs before May but didn't start to take advantage of their unemployment until last month.

Jimmy Fallan and the Roots take on the problems with California's economy

2009-06-03T20:52:00.003-04:00

I thought this was a funny video with Jimmy Fallon and the Roots signing about the Californian economy

I have to say the ending of the song has a point about the gay weddings could be a boost in the economy.

we are in the money...save it for later

2009-06-01T21:07:00.004-04:00

The finical times has stated that personal incomes for average people have risen by .5% this is the first rise in 4 months.

a small raise I know but it's an upward tick and that's good a little bit of good news

also the saving rate for most households is now around 5.7% the highest average savings rate that we have had in 14 years.

I'm surprised that this is the percentage of average house hold saving in 14 years, since it really seems like a low number to me. But I have to say this is good news, bad news for the economy. it's good news that people are saving and planning for their futures but it's bad news because we need people spending.

poor people tax

2009-05-21T18:06:00.003-04:00

the Washington Post has an interesting article about the fact that poor people in America are being charged more for a large number of things when compared to even just the middle class.

a lot of people look at the poor and feel that the reason they haven't pull themselves up are because they are lazy but looking at this article it is clear that things are stacked against them and maybe a bit of an eye opener for some people.

thought I think the article could have gone more in depth and even thought the headline says The high cost of poverty! Why the poor pay more? they don't actually talk about why the poor pay more, just the fact that they do.

Yes they go into the fact that many poor people don't have cars and can't drive to areas where things are cheaper and most poor people work to hard and long hours that they don't have the time to get on a bus and take a 3 or so hour ride to those areas.

It also goes into the fact that some of those stores they may shop at wont be able to get the big discounts big stores get and so they can't pass the saving to people with lower prices.

But when it comes to things like payday loans they don't go into why there are so many vultures preying on people and why aren't there more decent companies starting business in those areas.

the new Chrysler owner you don't know about!!!

2009-05-01T20:08:00.003-04:00

There has been much talk about who well own Chrysler in the near future.

There is much talk about the fact that the United States government will take an owner stake in the company, but form reports I've seen the government will only own 8% of the company.

and of course there is the news of the merger with Italian car company Fiat, but Fiat will only start of owning 20% and maybe able to own 35% in the future if certain things happen.

What I find the most interesting are the new would be owners that you don't see covered in the media.

first the United States isn't the only government that is going to own Chrysler, Canada will also own 2% of the car company. Not as much as the US true, but it makes since giving that the American car industry is also big part of Canada's economy as it is ours.

But what I find really interesting is the fact that the UAW will own 55% of the company. That's right the United Auto Workers union well now be majority owner of Chrysler, well to be more correct the union's retiree health care trust fund well be the owners. With this news I am wondering how close the new Chrysler will be to a worker cooperative. they have the majority ownership, but I don't know if the union will have the most control of the company.

The wall Street journal has an article with the head of the UAW saying they aren't going to control the company. But that the short term will things change in the future?

and another question is, would it be a bad thing if the union took control of the company? The people in the union have a vested interest in making sure the company stays afloat for not only the short term but the long term as well as since this is there livelihood. Also the fact that the union is made up of average blue collar people they have a better feel what average American wants, then the past owners of the company.

the later is very important giving that I live in Michigan and have gone past the parking lot of car factories and noticed that some people had non-American cars. Maybe if those workers had a bigger voice in the company they could have gotten Chrysler to produce cars with the features they wanted and giving how bad the company has been doing, they may have been able to bring out more cars that people wanted.

settlers in the forecloser era

2009-04-13T09:20:00.000-04:00

so in a world where many people have had their homes foreclosed on it not a shock that there has been an increase in homelessness. so where do these people go? mostly homeless shelters, in with family or renting apartments or even tent cities but in Miami there are those recently homeless people who are found themselves in a new home.

not a home that's paid for but a group called Take Back the Land is helping people become squaters in empty houses.

highly illegal of course but reading their site it is clear they see this as a valiant task as they give accounts of house they "liberated" and to be honest I'm a little mixed on it. sure it's nice to see a family having a place over their heads but this is going to be a problem when the house get's sold (or when someone tries to sell a home someone is living in)

and it doesn't seem wise to post the address of these homes on their blog

Happy times are near! group of top financial people think the recession will end this year

2009-03-26T14:36:00.002-04:00

the AP has a news story people at Moody's forecast that the current recession will end by the end of the year.

They basically point to the action that Obama's administration has done to try and stimulate the economy and banks.

they see banks lending wants their bad assets are gone and expect housing sales to turn up by the middle of the year (though we wont see prices as high as they where during the boom)

It's not all good news though, because the unemployment rate is still expected to go up until the middle of next year. thought they think that it will not peak as high as it could have if no stimulus action was taking (they think we will see a peak of 10% unemployment but we could have seen a 12% unemployment rate)

Let's hope that they are right about the end of the recession being soon (though hopefully employment will pick up sooner then they foretell)

after a decade of banks skipping paying their insurance, the FDIC may now be short on cash

2009-03-22T14:11:00.002-04:00

One of the things that stick out to me about this current economic crisis is how there are so many bad policies and practices that either help lead up to this crisis or risk making it worst.

another of these type of events is a story posted on the Boston Globe a few weeks ago that says that form 1996 to 2006 congress didn't push for banks to pay their FDIC insurance premiums, due to the banks instances and the FDIC's objections.

why because at the time the FDIC seemed to have so much money and their where so few bank failures, that congress seemed to think that as long as the FDIC seemed to have a lot of cash things would be safe.

Now because of the fact that when we where doing good economically banks didn't put their insurance bill, now if they risk going under, the FDIC may not have enough money to save them (depending on the banks size)

We are no longer in the worst recession since 81-82

2009-03-11T10:48:00.001-04:00

...we have now passed the number of unemployment that was seen in the recession of the early 80's

the numbers are even lower then the recession in the late 50's

I guess we should be glad that we haven't hit great depression numbers, but this is all sad news.

World Economy expected to shrink this year

2009-03-09T17:23:00.003-04:00

The World Bank has release a statement saying that they predict that the world's economy will go down this year.

This is the first time this has happened since the 1940s

everyone will be effected, but the countries that will get the worst of it will actually be the world's poorest nations.

Credit Card companies are going to make YOU pay for the bad economy

2009-03-02T12:21:00.001-05:00

as many of you probably know by now that many credit card companies have decided to raise their rates on their customers and it doesn't matter if these people always paid their bills on time.

wondering why credit card companies are jacking up their credit card rates on you. It sure isn't because of raising interest rates because those where dropped near zero in December.

The reason the credit card companies are giving is that they are raising rates because so many people are not paying their credit card bills in this bad economy. So they are doing this to cover themselves or in other words you are being forced to pay more money on your credit card bill because someone else couldn't pay their bill (though I'll doubt we'll see people crying about that in the same way the cry over the government trying to help people that are having trouble paying their mortgage)

a big irony in this move is that by raising their rates they may insure that more people wont be able to pay of their credit card bills.

the truth is that credit card companies are raising their rates because they can. the majority of us have became over dependent on them and don't think we can get by with out it. and the laws are currently in the credit card companies favor. If you file for bankruptcy you may get out of paying a number of people but you will still have to pay off your credit cards. if you decide to close your account, your credit score will be lowered.