The Eurozone: A Family Snapshot
Given what is going on in the eurozone at the moment, I thought it would be nice to have a snapshot picture of it, circa 2010. Data: Eurostat (2010)Ninety percent of the Eurozone's GDP is produced by...
View ArticleIt's Time To Tax
The following story appeared in Reuters and made my stomach turn.Some U.S. firms paid more to CEOs than taxes: study Here's an excerpt:"Compensation for the 25 CEOs with pay surpassing corporate taxes...
View ArticleMessage To ECB: Why Not Sell CDS, Instead?
With the European debt crisis threatening to tear apart the very fabric of the EU itself, here's an idea (a weird one, I admit). Instead of buying Italian, Spanish, Greek, etc. government bonds, the...
View ArticleThe Joe Engineer Indicator
Sometime ago I attended an alumni gathering arranged by my old college's Provost. Since he was making the effort to come such a long way I figured I had to go - plus it was good to see old friends...
View ArticleGermany's Choice
Germany is the world's #2 exporter, very close behind China. In 2010 it exported a total of 960 billion euro, amounting to 42% of its GDP. Its trade surplus came to 153 billion euro, almost 7% of...
View ArticleDebt and The Second Law
A very short post today.Debt is a call on future earnings, i.e. it presumes there will always be economic "growth" (however you may define it) in order to produce those future streams of income which...
View ArticleDebt 4 More Debt Is 4 Fools
A full four years after the debt crisis raised its ugly head as a sub-prime loan snafu, it has morphed into a "sovereign debt crisis". And how could it not, since what intervened since then was...
View ArticleSteve Jobs
Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, died yesterday, age 56. He was one of those very few people who changed the world for the better and who will always - and uncommonly - be remembered with...
View ArticleSNAPpy? Surely Not.
I occasionally look at the US Dept. of Agriculture data on food stamps (now called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - SNAP) because, in my opinion, it provides a much better "on the ground"...
View ArticleThe Battle For Europe
From all the news flow out there it appears to me that we are nearing a so-called "inflection" point in the European debt crisis. After a summer and early fall of spinning wheels to no end, European...
View ArticleNinety-Nine Percent
In the last 30 years the top 1% of Americans saw their real, after-tax income increase nearly fourfold. And how about the "other" 99%? Look below (click to enlarge)...One picture is worth a thousand...
View ArticleIt's Been A While...
This is the first post in some months... but it's not that I've been away or extraordinarily busy. Rather, I've been "digesting" all that has been happening around the global debt crisis, particularly...
View ArticleQuo Vadis, EUropa?
France holds the first round of its presidential elections this Sunday and Greece has scheduled parliamentary elections for May 6, coinciding with the second and decisive round for French elections....
View ArticleUpdate on Quo Vadis EUropa..
The Socialist leader Francois Hollande won the first round of French presidential elections and is now the favorite to win the second and final round on May 6th. Polls show him leading Sarkozy by a...
View ArticleDebt Distribution
We know that debt is not equally distributed across our society. That is to say, lots and lots of people OWE debt but very few, proportionally, OWN it as an asset. For example, everyone owes equally...
View ArticleOne Picture Is Worth A Thousand Marks (or Merkels)
Given what is going on in the eurozone at the moment, it is worth it to point out that the biggest beneficiary of the euro is Germany itself - and by very, very far. Data:Statistiches Bundesamt The...
View ArticleThe "Real Economy" Makes The News
Well, darn it!, I feel vindicated at long last... I've been harping on the need to focus on the Real Economy (tm) for so long in this blog, I was beginning to feel like a "nut". Lo and behold, Reuters...
View ArticleJust A Quote
"Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality,...
View ArticleBite The Bullet
Moody's just lowered the rating outlook for Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg to negative (currently AAA) because of the ongoing debt turmoil in Europe's South. In other words, Mrs. Merkel, if...
View ArticleBack From The Desert
It has been so long since the last post that I might as well have been perambulating in the desert! Which, in a way, I have.But, no matter, dear readers and friends, here goes.I have been trying to...
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