America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
I came upon some statistics with regard to food stamps. The program is called “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” or SNAP. The figures are impressively large, unfortunately. As well, the growth rates are brisk. Here is a table showing the Number of People Participating; as of January the figure is 39,430,724 up 22.4% from year-ago levels. …
As seen on the following 10-year daily chart, the 10-Year Treasury Yield has been rising as of late: chart courtesy of StockCharts.com There is very little general expectation for a significant rise in interest rates. In fact, the average economist forecast (as seen for the March 2010 Wall Street Journal Economist Survey) for the 10-Year …
Over the years, the topic of productivity has often been mentioned. I’ve had thoughts on the matter for years. An example is this “Letter To The Editor” I wrote concerning a BusinessWeek story back in 1995 (3rd letter down). Here is a March 31 Washington Post story on productivity. As the article says, “One of …
As a continuation of yesterday’s post, here are three other charts that I find disturbing in nature. These charts raise a lot of questions. Many of these questions I have discussed in the blog, as I believe they are very significant in nature. Additionally, these charts should highlight the “atypical” nature of our economic situation …
In the next two posts, I am going to display various charts that I find disturbing. These charts would be disturbing at any point in the economic cycle; that they depict such a dismal situation now – 9 months into what most believe is an economic recovery – is especially notable. Many more such charts …
Last Thursday, Alan Greenspan’s “The Crisis” paper (pdf) became available. I assume this is the paper that Alan Greenspan has previously spoken of, as seen in my previous post on his defense of his tenure. For now I simply want to post a link to the paper. I may further comment upon the paper at …
I would like to make a few comments regarding the health care legislation. I’ve written a few posts mentioning health care; here are the most substantive. First, as I’ve previously written, the health care system that we now have needed to be changed. It clearly has evolved into something that is unsustainable economically as well …
The March 1 edition of Fortune Magazine has an article titled “Alan Greenspan Fights Back.” The link is found here. I found the article interesting for a variety of reasons. As the article mentions, rarely has Greenspan addressed his purported culpability in creating the housing bubble and its accompanying impact on the economy. Greenspan’s tenure …
On October 16 I wrote a post titled “Tax Increases And Our Economic Situation.” That post can be found at this link. Some may wonder what tax increases I am referring to, as at least headline tax rates have yet to increase in many areas. Tax increases have been deferred for many reasons. Among these …
Here is poll (in PDF format) on economic conditions that I believe is highly notable. It is from CNN and was conducted February 12-15, 2010. The question presented was “How would you rate the economic conditions in the country today — as very good, somewhat good, somewhat poor, or very poor?” A total of 83% …