Submitted by CARPE DIEM
A: Nobody.
From George Will’s most recent column:
McDonald’s exemplifies the role of small businesses in Americans’ upward mobility. The company is largely a confederation of small businesses: 85% of its U.S. restaurants — average annual sales, $2.2 million — are owned by franchisees. McDonald’s has made more millionaires, and especially black and […]

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Submitted by Businomics Blog
Professors who use Businomics in their classes have a new resource: a set of Power Point slides created by Professor Tom Potiowsky of Portland State University (who is now returning to serve as Oregon’s state economist.) The deck can be downloaded from the Resources for Teachers page.
Thank you Tom.
Visit 1800blogger to see […]

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Submitted by Businomics Blog
Paul Merriman is a guru of investing with index funds. I interviewed him for the Businomics Audio Magazine. You can listen to his insights here.
Also available on the interviews page: Marsha Egan on email productivity, Mish on the economic outlook for 2008, Mark Sanborn on leadership, Dan Harris on China, […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
From the article: “More Grads, But Cognitive Ability Declines: Degrees and diplomas may not translate to on-the-job success,” in a recent edition of InsideRecruiting, a recruiting industry trade publication:
The good news: recruiters should see an increase in applicants with college degrees and high school diplomas; the bad news is that those applicants […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

From John Stossell in today’s NY Sun:
U.S. Congressional representative and Republican presidential contender Ron Paul has been called “Dr. No” because he repeatedly votes against legislation he believes gives government too much power. If it’s not in the Constitution, he says, the federal government has no business doing it. He even […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
NPR Morning Edition–In 2007, foreign investors acquired more than $43 billion worth of U.S. properties — almost double the amount foreigners spent a year earlier.
Three reasons:
1. Weak dollar makes U.S. real estate more affordable.
2. Increased global wealth means international investors have more investment capital.
3. Falling U.S. real estate prices offer bargains […]

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Submitted by The Capital Spectator
The Capital Spectator is taking a holiday recess to recharge, review and, yes, even relax. But there’s no permanent rest for the financially obsessed, and so we’ll return on January 2 with another round of observation and analysis.
Meantime, here’s wishing our readers a healthy, profitable and productive 2008.
Happy New Year!
Visit […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

Home prices have been falling (see WSJ article), but still dominate stocks over the last 10 years. Compared to ten years ago, the S&P500 Index today is 2X higher, but home prices are 2.68X higher.
From CNBC’s RealtyCheck: “Prices may be down, down even farther than the nasty recession-related bust of the early […]

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Submitted by Businomics Blog
The folks at Mozilla who put out the Firefox browser (which is great) understand the Trial and Error economy. They recently wrote up a description of an experiment they did in marketing their download web site. (Hat tip to Steve Levitt at Freakonomics.)
Here’s the test: if you go to a search […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
In a previous post on China’s currency, I focused on the implications of the ADB’s report on the new ICP analysis of PPP-based GDPs for misalignment estimates for China. Now, it’s time to look a bit more closely at why the data revision occurred.
From the World Bank’s Backgrounder FAQs [pdf] on the ICP:

What […]

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Submitted by A Dash of Insight
Traders frequently discuss the process of “window dressing” by fund managers. According to this theory, which seems to describe some market behavior, the managers want their quarter-end or year-end portfolios to show that they currently own stocks that have done well. They also want to reduce exposure to […]

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