Submitted by The Capital Spectator
You can slice it, you can dice it. You can even massage it and look on the bright side. But you still can’t get blood out of a stone or, it seems, inflation-adjusted increases in consumer spending.
Real personal consumption expenditures were flat in April, down from a slight 0.1% increase in […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by Econbrowser
More on the possible contribution of index fund investment to recent commodity price moves.

We and many others have been discussing whether the surge in investment fund purchases of long positions in commodity futures contracts may have been a factor contributing to the spot prices of those commodities beyond what would be warranted by […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by CARPE DIEM

From Greg Mankiw (Note: Greg shows real GNP growth, the chart above is real GDP growth, both on an annual percent change basis from a year ago. Both graphs tell the same story).
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.

Rating 3.00 out of 5

[?]

continue reading.....

Submitted by CARPE DIEM
World Billionaires By City
Despite all the squabbling between New York and London for bragging rights, neither is actually home to the largest number of billionaires in 2008 according to Forbes. That honor belongs to Moscow (see chart above).
The Russian capital is home to 74 billionaires, with an average net worth of $5.9 […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Buried inside today’s BEA report on April Personal Income (tables available here, see Table 10) is the statistic that “Real Disposable Personal Income” grew at an annual rate of 1.82% in April 2008 compared to April 2007, the highest rate of growth since December 2007 (see chart above). This will probably […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by A Dash of Insight
Explaining and displaying data combines art and science.  The information itself is objective, as are calculations of trends and changes.  Despite this, there is an element of artistry.
A professor leading a class is motivated to help students find the truth.  One of our old professors described a certain statistical technique […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by CARPE DIEM
It’s now official: Real, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices in the U.S. are at an all-time, according to data from the EIA (see chart above). The previous high was $3.426 per gallon in March 1981 (in today’s dollars), which was exceeded in April ($3.466 per gallon) and May ($3.671 per gallon) of this year.
The […]

continue reading.....

Submitted by CARPE DIEM
1. The S&P 500 Index consistently outperformed 98% of mutual fund managers over the past three years and 97% over the past 10 years, ending October 2004. In two 30-year studies, the S&P 500 outperformed 97% and 94% of managers. In addition, only about 12% of the top 100 of managers repeat […]

continue reading.....