Social unrest in Tunisia has shone a spotlight on the country’s high inflation and unemployment, characteristics shared by many of its neighbors. The misery index developed by economist Arthur Okun traditionally adds a country’s inflation rate and unemployment to measure quality of life. Bloomberg Brief modified this for the map below, adding in the Democracy […]
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Thematic Piece
When the Federal Reserve launched its unprecedented program of quantitative easing in early 2009, it was difficult to predict how various asset classes would react. Now, as the Fed considers a second round of asset purchases, the first program has left a blueprint of sorts behind that could be useful in predicting how markets might […]
As a fan of beer, technology, and business I may have stumbled upon the perfect article this morning on Bloomberg to write a quick weekend note. Apparently, a nuclear scientist–who looks like he would feel quite at home in any brewery–crafted a beer mug designed with the same technology used to store liquid nitrogen. The […]
Recently I have found plenty of enjoyment looking through old Popular Science magazines online. Today I came across an article from 1981 in which the author was very serious about a new service rolling out that would deliver data directly to your TV via phone lines or antennas (traffic, scores, weather, etc…). I am assuming […]
While all eyes remain on Greece, Japan’s fundementals continue to weaken, and in some instances look worse than Greece. There are of course numerous technical and economic differences between the two nations; however, I do not believe Japan’s current deficits and debt load will be sustainable without drastic changes. This is an update from my […]
Intellectual property, mobile internet technology and national censorship make an incendiary mix for global business and consumerism. This was brought to center stage recently with the escalating disagreement between Google and the Chinese government over privacy rights for online content. The clash of swords has most recently become a truly intergovernmental affair as well with […]
I finally caved and opened a Twitter account for Fiat Economics: https://twitter.com/FiatEconomics I plan on using this to post short timely financial/economic musings that pop into my head throughout the day. The expect some days will have many while others will be rather slow.
“Unless further measures are taken to reduce the [U.S.] budget deficit further or the economy rebounds more vigorously than expected, the federal financial picture as presented in the projections for the next decade will at some point put pressure on the triple A government bond rating,” -Moodys This quote came from a note Moody’s released […]
Hearing about GM’s new battery plant I started reminiscing about an article I wrote back in July of 2008. Will this movement in the U.S. have the same impact it had on Japan? We will have to wait and see.