“…the number of people in households that bring in more than $100,000 also rose from 12 percent to 24 percent. There was no increase in the percentage of people in households making less than $30,000. So the entire ‘decline’ of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder. For married couples, median …
Category Archives: Economics
China Restates Earnings
“…with the corrected China [Purchasing Power Parity] statistics, the whole question is moot. China is just not that big now and will not get that big any time soon.” – Albert Kiedel of the Carnegie Endowment Kiedel’s article put a number of things into perspective for me – namely why I hear ‘China, China, China’ …
Local-Ownership Arguments Loco
“If the small operations want to stay in business… they have to innovate.” – Wolfgang Puck I’m with Puck, I don’t buy the argument that big national operations take money from smaller locally-owned operations. If anything, big name presence is proof a viable, stable market exists. Would it be better if Puck didn’t have a …
When Do We Throw It All Away?
First off, I’m all for minimizing landfills and maximixing the use of our resources. But, I’ve been thinking more and more about the economics of ‘recycling’ since listening to Mike Munger on EconTalk in July. Right at the start of the podcast, Munger asks, “I have something in my hand, I want you to guess, …
Gifted
“When a holiday is the pretext and the value of the gift is (possibly) linked to merit, we can self-deceive and believe that a small-valued gift simply represents a cheap gift-giver, or a friendship of uncertain strength, rather than our own lack of merit.” – Tyler Cowen Ouch.
A Middle Man’s a Middle Man
“Apple is no different than Best Buy, Wal-Mart, or RIAA….No modern consumer is going to stop listening to their favorite band because Circuit City doesn’t carry their CD.” – Benn Jordan Benn’s post is one of the many articles online showing how little compensation musicians receive from the business organizations that are said to be …
Only Do
“We are not good at knowing, we are not good at planning, we are not good at forecasting, we are only good at doing.” – Nassim Taleb, author The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Why Buying Local, Frontier House, and the Trade Deficit are All Silly
Russ Roberts’ EconTalk is consistently interesting and engaging podcast covering economics as a perspective and a practice. I spent the first half of this week listening to his hour long conversation with colleague Don Boudreaux on the economics of buying local for the sake of buying local. Boudreaux and Roberts expand on many of the …
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Off Balance
Focusing on the trade deficit encourages the implementation of poorly designed protectionist policies that will only serve to undermine the American and global economies in the long run.” – Pejman Yousefzadeh via Ben At a micro level, tracking the trade deficit is like tracking a grocery imbalance with your local supermarket.
Demanding Markets in Absolutely Everything
“The next logical step, then, would be to make this all personally competitive. The rise of the multi-billion dollar fantasy sports industry — where people bet, or simply compete for bragging rights, by predicting and tracking statistics in everything from baseball and football, to supreme court decisions and Congressional voting — demonstrates how eager people …
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