Category Archives: Business & Economy
New Treasury Report Sets the Stage For Future Bailouts
A new report issued by the Treasury Department outlines how certain firms are “systemically important”. This term has also become commonly known as “Too Big To Fail” but, whatever designation, it still leads to one thing: bailouts.
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It Begins: Pension Bailout Bill To Be Introduced This Week
Plans to introduce legislation this week would allow struggling multi-employer pension funds to borrow from the U.S. Treasury to remain solvent.
Read moreAmazon Registers Crypto, Ethereum Domains As Rumors Swirl It May Soon Accept Bitcoin
The global online retail giant could soon integrate Bitcoin as a payment option.
Read moreMatt Taibbi Exposes The Great College Loan Swindle
Americans don’t understand the student-loan crisis because they’ve been trained to view the issue in terms of a series of separate, unrelated problems. But the separateness of these stories clouds the unifying issue underneath: The education industry as a whole is a con.
Read moreUS Homes Have Never Been More Un-affordable
While house prices are once again hitting new all time highs every month, household incomes have failed to keep up; in fact, in the past two years there has been a distinct trend in home affordability, or lack thereof.
Read moreMeet America’s New ‘Renter Class’: Baby Boomers
Baby Boomers are increasingly giving up their participation in America’s perpetually re-inflating housing bubbles and opting instead to return to the smaller living accommodations of their youth.
Read moreTrump’s Fed Picks? More of the Same!
This week President Trump revealed his final five candidates for Federal Reserve chair. Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, all five have strong ties to the financial and political establishment.
Read moreMapping What Every State In America Is Best At
Factory towns may be a thing of the past, but it remains true today that similar businesses tend to grow and expand in areas with the same economic conditions…
Read moreStaggering Chart Shows Your Personal Share Of Your State’s Underfunded Pension
Decades of budget mismanagement and hollow pension promises to public employees has resulted in a mountain of debt that many states are unlikely to ever repay.
Read moreWhich American Cities Will File Bankruptcy Next?
JP Morgan has provided a comprehensive guide on which municipalities haven’t the slightest hope of surviving their multi-decade debt binge and lavish public pension awards.
Read moreFlorida’s Orange Growers May Never Recover From Hurricane Irma
Hurricane Irma destroyed half of Florida’s citrus crop when it tore through the state earlier this month. Many of the affected groves of oranges and grapefruits were approaching harvest and their destruction has since help send the price of orange concentrate futures rocketing higher. Unfortunately, Irma only exacerbated the situation of declining output caused by an epidemic of “citrus greening” that’s in its twelfth year.
Read moreBang For Your Buck? Mapping Where A Dollar Goes Furthest In America
“Go to any large, high-density city like New York or San Francisco, and you’ll notice a difference in costs immediately. The price you pay for groceries, dinner at the restaurant, filling up your tank, or even your daily coffee goes up substantially… While this effect on costs is most evident in cities, it’s actually present throughout the country.”
Read morePutting America’s Record-Breaking $20 Trillion Debt In Global Context
The U.S. federal government just passed a record $20 trillion in publicly held debt. And, it will only grow higher unless President Trump and the U.S. Congress can agree to unprecedented spending cuts combined with tax increases. But when you look at another fiscal measure – the ratio of debt-to-GDP – the U.S. is not in the worst situation…
Read moreMillennials Head One-Third Of All Poverty-Stricken U.S. Households
According to a recent note published by the Pew Research Center, Millennials now head more households living below the poverty line than any other generation and, in aggregate, represent nearly one-third of all impoverished households in the United States.
Read moreHere’s How Much You’ve Lost On Your Used Car So Far In 2017 (Hint: A Lot)
America’s favorite rapidly-depreciating asset is now losing it’s value fast than ever… which is probably not good news for an auto market in which 25% people were already underwater by an average $3,635.
Read moreCarmageddon: Deep Subprime Auto Delinquencies Spike To 10-Year Highs
“As soon as lenders (and the investors behind them) get overconfident that they have better models and can make excess profits by disrespecting credit risk, they always get their hats handed to them sooner or later. The mortgage market learned this lesson at the expense of the entire global financial system, and it is playing out now in a micro-level, in the ABS market for subprime auto loans.”
Read moreWhy Robots Won’t Cause Mass Unemployment
Say’s Law of markets is a particularly potent antidote to worries about automation, displaced workers, the so-called “economic singularity” as well as any fears about a re-distributive shift in income from the poor to the rich from machines.
Read moreThe Amazon Effect: Retail Bankruptcies Surge 110% In First Half Of The Year
Retail bankruptcies soared 110% in the first half from the year-ago period, accounting for $6 billion in debt. The list includes name brands such as Gymboree, Payless, rue 21 and the Limited, all of which cited the Amazon affect as a contributor to their downfall.
Read moreTotal Government And Personal Debt In The U.S. Has Hit 41 Trillion Dollars ($329,961.34 Per Household)
There is no way that this is going to end well. “…our highly levered financial system is like a truckload of nitro glycerin on a bumpy road…”
Read moreOur Obsession with Survey Data is Ruining Economics
The many flaws of survey data makes it a rather questionable foundation for economic science.
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