America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
On October 30 The Chicago Tribune had an article titled “Trying to keep up with hunger.” The article was about food assistance provided by the Northern Illinois Food Bank, of which Dennis Smith is executive director and CEO. There are some interesting (and disturbing) passages in the article. Here are a few: “‘The number of people visiting …
Here is a story from yesterday’s Chicago Tribune titled, “Homelessness rises, redefining living conditions for schoolchildren.” http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/chi-homeless-studentsoct28,0,7967162.story As I have previously written: “As I discussed in my September 3 post, I think it is important to have stories and statistics concerning poverty and misfortune published on a more frequent basis. While they are certainly disheartening, …
Lately there has been quite a bit of activity in either increasing or proposing increasing taxes (also increases in fees, fines, etc). This activity is occurring at all levels, i.e. local, state, and national. These tax increases are very noteworthy given our current period of economic weakness. I will be addressing various aspects of this in the future. For …
On Tuesday The Wall Street Journal published an editorial on the FHA (Federal Housing Administration). I found it to be a good overview of the situation there. The editorial can be found at this link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574428970233151130.html I find this FHA situation highly disconcerting, especially in light of how similar situations have played out, and are playing out, …
Here is a September 17 story detailing a Bloomberg News poll: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aDhCOltOR1RY I found various aspects of this story to be interesting, but one facet really stood out: “Respondents were divided over whether the economy will get better or stay the same in the next six months; only 1 in 6 said things will get …
Lately there have been a couple of polls conducted showing the percent of people living “paycheck to paycheck.” Here is a CNBC.com story from September 16 regarding this issue: http://www.cnbc.com/id/32862851 This “paycheck to paycheck” dynamic is noteworthy, especially since it appears to be widespread. It appears to be relatively common even among those making above $100,000. It would …
Recently there has been a thought circulating that the worse the recession (or economic weakness) the stronger the following economic rebound. This refrain has been heard from various quarters. This belief does appear to be historically accurate, at least to some degree. However, there are three aspects of this belief that I want to elaborate …
I’ve found it interesting that economic analysis is being categorized as coming from different political sources. For instance, it is often said that Ben Bernanke was appointed by a Republican, Paul Krugman is a “liberal economist,” etc. This type of classification was also seen in President Obama’s speech on Wednesday, when he said “…an idea …
I ran across this story about homeless children in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/education/06homeless.html As I discussed in my September 3 post, I think it is important to have stories and statistics concerning poverty and misfortune published on a more frequent basis. While they are certainly disheartening, it is far better to have awareness of the trends and …
Lately I have seen a few articles that have openly stated that deflation would be a “positive” for individuals. There are various reasons given for this conclusion. One of the reasons that has been given is that deflation would lower the price of goods, and thereby increase purchasing power. My thought on the matter is …