When you think ‘siege’ you think of the Middle Ages and months of castles surrounded and stalemated armies. Sieges don’t happen in the modern era. Well a siege actually did happen in Sarajevo (Bosnia) between 1992 and 1995. The Serbs completely surrounded the city and pounded Sarajevo daily with bombs and sniper fire from the […]
Economy
Our Limitations… Our Habits…
Not too long ago, The Economist wrote an article about an academic paper that I’ve since learned is called “Evidence for a conserved quantity in human mobility” by Laura Alessandretti and Andrea Baronchelli, both in the Mathematics Department at City University of London, and Sune Lehmann at the DTU Technical University of Denmark. If you […]
When Will The Party End?…
By almost any measure, the U.S. economy is in great shape. At 3.9%, the U.S. unemployment rate is at historic lows. Inflation remains at reasonably low levels and economic growth, as measured by GDP, just hit its highest quarterly rate since 2014. But economies have a nasty tendency to go through boom and bust cycles […]
Remember the Death of the Dollar?
Back in the depths of the last recession in 2008 the U.S. dollar was considered toast. Everyone was convinced the days of global greenback dominance were over. It was just a matter of time before China would dump its U.S. Treasury holdings and move to a stronger currency. Well, five years later things look a […]
China: Royal Flush or House of Cards?
The International Comparison Program, a loose coalition of the world’s leading statistical agencies, recently reported that China will become the world’s largest economy this year based on purchasing power parity. PPP measures what money can actually buy. For instance, a hair cut in China is much less expensive than one in the U.S. When you […]
You Can Retire Very Comfortably If
The ending of the title sentence here is . . . if you start saving when you’re young. Yes, the big secret to being able to retire comfortably is no secret at all, but the remarkably simple directive to start saving early. Get on a program of regularly socking away a percentage of your paycheck […]
Income Inequality – An Issue That Won’t Go Away
The stock market is hitting new highs, real estate prices are recovering and consumer balance sheets are healthier than ever. But in the face of this happy news, a growing body of research is highlighting that much of America is not participating in the prosperity. French economist Thomas Piketty is the latest to weigh in […]
