Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Imagine if Michigan’s struggling Big Three automakers suddenly struck this deal with Congress: The U.S. government would buy the Motor City’s cars for roughly twice the world market price, then resell them at about an 80% loss.
This boondoggle of a deal would spur worldwide protest, and rightfully so. But the five-year, […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

A black woman with a bachelor’s degree earns as much as a white woman with a degree. But with a professional degree, black women earn 30% more than white women (see chart above).

Also from The Economist article “Nearer To Overcoming“:

For every dollar that a white man earns, a black man makes […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Maybe this is why stamp prices are so high?

Bloomberg – The U.S. Postal Service purchased more than 30,000 ethanol-capable trucks and minivans from 1999 to 2005, making it the biggest American buyer of alternative-fuel vehicles. Gasoline consumption jumped by more than 1.5 million gallons as a result. A Postal Service study […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Economic growth in the G7 countries (U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and UK) was 0.48% (1.92% annualy) in the first quarter of 2008, just slightly below the average growth of .50% over the last 7 years (see graph above, data from OECD).
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Submitted by The Capital Spectator
It’s not just about food and energy, and that makes it all the more worrisome.
Core wholesale prices, which is to say ignoring food and energy prices, are now running at their highest annual pace since the early 1990s, as our chart below shows. Through April 2008, core producer prices rose by […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
I’ve been offering reasons for believing that the flow of funds into commodity investing has contributed to the recent oil price highs. Although I believe this speculation has gotten ahead of fundamentals in the last few months, there is no question in my mind that market fundamentals are the main reason for the […]

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Submitted by A Dash of Insight
Last week we presented a small true/false quiz with a number of economics statements.  Some of the statements are true, but possibly misleading.  The quiz is repeated below with answers following each question.
The Quiz

Home prices are now deflating at a 32% annual rate, versus 8% six months ago.  [True, but […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Detroit News–Fueled by a surge in oil prices, Russia has turned into the hottest of the hot emerging markets — countries where automakers that can supply the right models earn a lot of money, particularly in the early stages of the boom when demand is outstripping supply.
In the past five years, auto […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Hillary’s odds on Intrade.com: From 70% to 6% in 120 days.
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Rating 3.00 out of 5

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
The data show that the tax yield (revenues divided by GDP) has been independent of marginal tax rates from 1950 to 2007 (see chart above), but tax revenue is directly proportional to GDP. So if we want to increase tax revenue, we need to increase GDP.

What happens if we instead raise tax […]

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