The Euro has weakened substantially against the dollar over the last few months. Probably the two main reasons are the weak economies of many European Union countries and the recent failure of the EU Constitution. Still, the Euro is significantly stronger than a few years ago. Click on graphs for larger images. Although there are […]

Has Ron Scherer of the Christian Science Monitor been reading Angrybear? An increasing part of production costs in America comes from the price of promises … Now, even with the economy far from a recession, the cost of these promises is becoming a drag. On Tuesday, the size of the drag became more apparent for […]

The Heritage Foundation lists Tim Kane as its expert on labor economics. Fox News shows once again that “fair and balanced” reporting means Bush cheerleading: Leave aside the fact that jobs are only one of the measures of economic performance. The rapid growth rate in GDP, stable inflation, a housing boom, and world-beating productivity growth […]

The latest addition to the “Topics” archive in the left panel is a collection of our posts on the housing market and the possibility (likelihood?) that we’re currently in a bubble, or perhaps a set of regional bubbles. Most, though not all, of the posts are by our valued Monday contributor from Calculated Risk. AB

MMerrill Lynch and Cap Gemini released their 2005 World Wealth Report (pdf here) this week. Hopefully I’ll have more to say when I’ve read the full report; in the meantime, here are some highlights from the press release: “The number of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) — individuals with a net worth of at least U.S. $1 […]

Now I finally understood what Al Gore meant by “risky scheme” — Ted Barlow of Crooked Timber on the Ohio Coin Scandal: When I learned that Ohio Republicans had (cough) “invested” $50 million of public funds in rare coins and collectables controlled by a highly connected Republican fundraiser, I thought, this doesn’t look good. When […]

The disinformation on the alleged free lunch from privatization continues. Donald Luskin is asking folks to read this piece by Amy Menefee. She tries to claim some sort of leftie bias in the media. She also stumbles when she talks economics: In reality, the president’s plan for personal accounts would operate much like the Thrift […]

The GOP was pushing for drilling in ANWAR even when the world market price for crude oil was less than the estimated extraction cost for getting crude oil out of ANWAR. Currently, the market price for crude is about twice this extraction cost and some analysts expect world prices to remain high. One Saudi official […]

Why do people take out an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) when buying or refinancing a house? Many economists would probably argue that it should depend primarily on one’s expectations for future interest rates: if you think interest rates are very low and are likely to rise, you should lock them in with a fixed rate, […]

Kash discussed the recent good news on compensation last Thursday and the lackluster increase in payroll employment on Friday. Kevin Drum noted how one story thought higher compensation wasn’t good news, and CNN notes one economist found weak employment growth “non-threatening” for investors and policy makers. This economist was likely thinking about monetary policy , […]