Outsourcing – This takes outsourcing to a new level….Subject: DEPRESSED? I was depressed last night so I called Lifeline. Got a call center in Pakistan. I told them I was suicidal. They got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck.

The price of oil touched $100 today. The new record is being accompanied by all kinds of analysis and comments relating this new record to developments in the US economy. But, US real oil imports, including both crude and refined products have been flat to down since early in the decade. Looking at it from […]

A few days ago I commented on an article about how Wal-Mart provides emergency supplies to disaster areas at their regular everyday low prices. I pointed out that libertarians like those at Café Hayek should note these developments and see that some guy in the back of a pick-up truck selling supplies at high prices […]

Jarad Berstein athttp://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/dec/13/boy_have_we_got_an_inequality_problem just reported that the The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just updated their invaluable data series on income inequality. In looking at them I came up with a couple of very interesting charts. In recent years there has been one big factor in this redistribution of income thathas not been discussed much. That […]

The November retail sales data clearly do no support a recession scenario. Nov(3) Oct sept total 385,753 381,088 380,231 grocery 43,417 43,003 42,805 gas 39,438 36,919 35,806 Nonstore retailers…………………………. 25,611 25,127 25,016 REMAINDER 277,287 276,039 276,604 About half of the nonstore retailers is fuel oil deliveries. So if you take out the price drivenlarge increases […]

This is from the Oregonian via Division of labor Big Boxes to the Rescue On Wal-Mart et al. in the recent Northwestern deluge: In cases of extreme weather and natural disasters, some of the nation’s largest retailers now behave like municipalities — sometimes better. Retailers have created specialized divisions — or hired outside firms — […]

Just a quick follow up on the employment report. Not only did wage growth come in weak, but the prior data was revised down.People had been looking at the downward revisions of the personal income dataand expecting to to see employment revised down. But rather than employment,it was average hourly earnings that were revised lower. […]

The employment report data continues to imply that the economy is slowly sliding into astagnation scenario. I let others argue, but I do not see how one can avoid that conclusion.

Tyler Cowen has an interesting article on the weak dollar in the Times today that is also discussed at economistsview. Just so everyone would have a good view of imports market share I though I would publish this chart. Discussion on the dollar often center on the impact of a weak dollar on imports. But […]

The WSJ took the data from this study and created this graphic: The reason that I posted the data below on how age distorted this study is simply becausethis data massively overstates the degree of income mobility in the US. It is one of the most blatant misrepresentations I have ever seen on the WSJ […]