Yogi Berra, the New York Yankee catcher/philosopher once said, “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.” Prices just keep going up, up and up every year. Well there is some good news on this front in this year’s edition of the Hanson Index of Essential Burlington Prices. First, the Consumer Price Index (CPI- all urban […]
Eric Hanson
It’s More Important Than You Thought
The first Social Security check was mailed in January, 1940 to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont. She received a monthly benefit of $22.54. Times have changed and Social Security is now an even bigger part of everyone’s life. It is estimated that a married couple who have earned at or above the payroll tax […]
Where You Stand Depends On Where You Sit…. Literally
This is a bit of a different page for us. The International New York Times (formerly the International Herald Tribune) had two stories, three pages apart on February 20, 2015. They couldn’t deal with more different worlds. The first story is about King Salman, the newly installed king of Saudi Arabia. The ruling families in […]
Measuring the Market
“So how’s the market?” Most likely whoever you ask will tell you how the Dow Jones Industrial Average is doing. The Dow has been around since 1884 when Charles Dow first published a list of stocks in his Customer’s Afternoon Letter. The Index morphed into the Industrial Average in 1896 (see below) and the Dow […]
Thinking… It’s Not as Easy as You Thought
There was a wonderful article in The New Yorker recently (February 2, 2014) titled, “The Pursuit of Beauty.” It is about a Chinese mathematician at the University of New Hampshire who received a MacArthur Award for solving a problem in pure mathematics that has baffled theorists for 150 years. Pure math is done with no […]
Global Communication and Thoughts From London
I always like to read ‘farewell’ comments by truly exceptional thinkers. When the editor of the single best publication we read (The Economist) retires, we pay attention. John Micklethwait has headed The Economist since 2006. In his farewell editorial (January 31, 2015) he notes that there are two great debates going on in the world […]
Get the Important Things Right
There are only two reasons why an economy grows and only two reasons why stocks go up in price. I know this is overly simplistic, but not by much. An economy will grow if the workforce grows and if each worker produces more widgets per hour (productivity). Historically the US economy has seen work force […]
Our Holiday Gift
Seventeen years and running now we have dusted off our Test Kitchen each December and tried out a new chocolate Holiday Treat. We have done cupcakes and mousse and even a bourbon infused chocolate bundt cake. But we have never done macaroons. The added attraction here, and remember we are in finance, is the recipe […]
The Baltics in Winter
I must confess I don’t know that much about Eastern Europe so a trip to the Baltics sounded like a good idea. It was a great choice. The Baltics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) get their name from the Baltic Sea (see map). The three countries are small with populations between 1 million (Estonia) and 3 […]
The China Speed Read
China is important today. Julie is writing about it on page 4 and I give you three snippets here that have been in the news recently and may be of interest. How big is big? China’s development since 1979 is for the record books. No country in history has pulled as many people out of […]
Great News – A Life Extended
The chart below is music to our ears. If you are fortunate enough to get to 65, the tables say you are going to live two years longer on average than the same tables predicted in 2000. Advances in medicine for the two biggest killers, heart disease and cancer, have certainly helped. And further good […]
We Are The New China
Well not exactly but it is looking more like this. For many years China was the engine of the world. It was reassuring to see China growing 10% to 12% per year while we in the developed world were stumbling from one Bubble to another. Now the tables have turned a bit. China is still […]
