HT: Reason.com.
Tags: Business, Employment, Outscourcing, Politics, Reason.com, Technology
Archive | 23:37
U.S. Condos: Cheaper Than Cars
12 Aug
“What about a 1BR, 1.5 bath condo in the complex in Deerfield Beach, Florida (near Ft. Lauderdale) for just $25k (details here)? About the same price as a Toyota Camry LE ($26k MSRP) – choose from 25 other Deerfield Beach condos for $28k or less; starting at $19,5k.
Or check here for 33 Las Vegas condos for only $20k or less, starting at $10k; and here you’ll find 31 condos in the Phoenix area (Glendale) for $28k or less, starting at $12,5k.
- You’ll probably never get a better deal on U.S. real estate than right now, especially with mortgage rates at historical lows. So if you’ve been thinking about a Florida condo, vacation home, rental property, or a first home, now’s the time – everything’s on sale.” HT: Mark J. Perry @Carpe Diem.
Growing Shadow Economies
12 Aug
“Transactions taking place outside the taxable and observable official economy captured by GDP numbers are increasing for the first time in a decade.”
You find the details in The Economist here.
Sisters of Jesus and Mary Sue Morgan Stanley
12 Aug
Yet another religious lawsuit:
“Hundreds of Irish nuns are alleging in a lawsuit that Morgan Stanley failed to properly dispose of “so-called Hybrid Structured euro constant maturity swap notes,” causing losses of at least $6.4 million.”
Read the rest of the Fox news article here.
Financial Vesper
12 Aug
Bloomberg: Android Outsells Apple’s IPhone in the U.S., Gartner Says.
Seeking Alpha: Friday the 13th to Save the Week?
BusinessWeek: Business School Applications Sputter.
The Financial Times: Credit Suisse to shed 75 jobs in London.
Reuters: Jobless claims jump shows labor market ailing.
The Big Picture: Bailout States & Municipalities.
Forbes: How To Profit From Deflation.
The New York Times: Chinese health care update.
ChessBase News: Men play chess more aggressively against female opponents.
The Wall Street Journal: Porsche Takes A Step Into Green.
MarketWatch: An influential technology analyst says Apple should start returning some of its massive cash hoard to shareholders, ideally through a dividend. The following chart shows the total cash equivalents:
HT: Asymco.
On Inheritance Tax
12 Aug
“The effect of an inheritance tax is simply to drive us out of the things that we know will be taxed when we die. That includes a lot of productive investments, that could be growing wealth for ourselves, our children and our fellow citizens. A report for the Adam Smith Institute some years ago found that, for as long as inheritance taxes – or death duties, or whatever they were called – existed, their yield to the nation as a whole had been negative, because they drive people into less productive ways of using their money, but leave them more to give their children. It’s an unjust and counterproductive system. Inheritance tax should go.”
Read the full article from Adam Smith Insitute: We should scrap inheritance tax.
The Australian Patient
12 Aug
“Because of that debt level, bank profits have gone through the roof as a share of GDP. Back before we had a financial crisis—when debt levels were far lower than today—so too were bank profits as a share of GDP. A sustainable level of bank profits appears to be about 1% of GDP.”
Read the rest of Steve Keen’s comments the graphs: Bank Profits a sign of economic sickness, not health.
Next Issue Of The Economist
12 Aug
Looks Stunning – The new weekly edition of The Economist is now available to read on the Economist Website!
Car Thieves Are Male
12 Aug
“Car theft is a man’s world, according to a new paper by Christopher W. Mullins and Michael G. Cherbonneau. Car thieves face two big tasks: stealing the car and selling it. Both male and female thieves are mentored by more experienced thieves in much the same way; however, men have an advantage when it’s time to sell the stolen goods. “They are more connected to a social network of criminals that provides access to chop shops, where the cars can be dismantled and sold for parts,” reports Tom Bartlett.” Go to the latest Freakonomics post here: Why Car Thieves Are Male.
See also:
The Most-Stolen Cars - Forbes.com (Guess What: US Car Thieves Also Have Bad Taste (!))
Bankrupt California
12 Aug
In 2009, for the first time since World War II, Californians made less than they did the year before – says a report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Market Laudes
12 Aug
Bloomberg: `Buy and Bail’ Homeowners Get Past Loan Restrictions.
Reuters: Foreign firms helped by U.S. bailouts.
The Financial Times: North Korea offers ginseng to pay Czech debt.
The Wall Street Jounal: Most Asian Currencies Likely to Fall.
SmartMoney: 3 Companies Whose Margins Doubled.
BBC: Australian jobless rate increases.
The Guardian: Youth Unemployment Hits Record High.
Head And Shoulders Pattern?
12 Aug
For those of you familiar with technichal analysis: Is the economy forming a Head And Shoulders Pattern? Have the markets been blowing a gigantic bubble heavily supported by the Federal printing press? The answer is yes. Will the government still fight deflation and support wasteful stimulus? Yes. We do not know how long we kan postpone another dip – the magnitude of any cycle is uncertain. Therefore – stay informed: The economists are continuously contraditing each other and you will proably learn lots if you follow both theory and reality (I sure do – enjoy the debate!) The only sure thing is to not go overweight in equity before this mess settles. Found the graph @Bradford De Long – Grasping Reality With Both Hands. Great resource for undergraduate students of economics btw.
Demographics Predicted Boom & Bust
12 Aug
“The bull market is as vast and powerful as the baby boomer generation, and the two are inextricable. The 80 million or so boomers–those born between 1946 and 1964–are hitting their peak earning, spending, and investing years, and that’s what’s driving the economy’s incredible performance and the stock market’s spectacular returns. His target for the Dow is 40,000–which he believes it will hit somewhere around 2008.
After that, watch out. As an economic force, the boomers will have peaked, and there just aren’t enough Generation Xers to sustain the economic and stock market boom. Even the revolutionary changes wrought by the rapid growth of the Internet don’t change that. In Dent’s view, the economy goes into a deflationary funk for another 10 or so years, until the boomers’ children–the 83 million ”echo baby boom” generation–reach their economic prime.”
For full blog post: Aleks Jakulin @Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science.
Nocturnal Completorium
12 Aug
Bloomberg: Cisco Sales Miss Estimates on Sluggish Corporate Spending.
BusinessWeek: Most High Earners Wouldn’t Get Tax Hit.
MarketWatch: Worst day in Weeks.
The Financial Times: Emerging markets drive sales for Nestlé.
Reuters: America’s Fast-Fading Recovery.
Forbes: Un-Freakonomics.
The Economist: Johnson discovers the most overused words in PR.
The Wall Street Journal: Pras on Why He’s Endorsing Wyclef’s Rival for President of Haiti.
WSJ Markets
- Fed's Varied Voices Leave Market GuessingBernanke said the Fed could start reducing bond buying "in the next few meetings" but warned against premature action, amid conflicting messages that roiled markets.
- Gap Is Starting to Look OverdressedAhead of the Tape: Profits never go out of fashion. Sadly, the same can't be said for the wares on display at Gap and its competitors.
- Ghana Looks to Join Bond BandwagonGhana hopes to become the latest African country to ride the wave of cheap borrowing with the sale of a new bond aimed at international markets for only the second time in its history.
- Copper Rises on Supply ConcernsCopper prices settled near six-week highs but pulled back from earlier peaks, as worries about the future of the Fed's monetary stimulus tempered suggestions of tighter supplies.
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