Commerce

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News: “Climate and Jobs”

Remember that the economy is a subset of the environment, because the environment contains all life on Earth.  Without a healthy environment, the economy cannot be healthy either.  Conversely, when people’s needs are met, they have more ability to protect the environment, whereas hungry people tend to ravage it.

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6Mar2010 | Elizabeth Barrette | Comments Off | Continued
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Three Questions: Corporate Finance

A recent ruling has lifted restrictions on corporate contributions to political campaigns.

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24Jan2010 | Elizabeth Barrette | Comments Off | Continued
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Does this seem right to you?

100 people come to a picnic.  There is a table with 100 bowls of food.

The first person takes ONE THIRD of the bowls, 33 of them.

The next four people grab 26 bowls.  The next five people take 12 bowls. The next ten people take 13 bowls.

The next twenty people take 11 bowls, which they have to share.

The next twenty people take 4 bowls, which they attempt to share.

The next twenty-two people take the last bowl.  It doesn’t go very far.

The last eighteen people get nothing at all.

Imagine that this doesn’t happen just one time.  How long do you think it could continue before something really bad happens?

This the wealth distribution in America.

22Jan2010 | Elizabeth Barrette | Comments Off | Continued
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News: “Commonwealth Champions Adaptation Fund”

I think this idea has promise.  It’s usually a good idea to plan ahead and set aside money to deal with future challenges, than wait and get run over by them.

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4Dec2009 | Elizabeth Barrette | Comments Off | Continued
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The chickens will come home to roost

The world’s governments have poured good money after bad. There can’t be much left.

I have written repeatedly on how these actions have distorted the markets, how they are making things worse in an attempt to stop failed enterprises from failing.

It’s hard to say how much money has been thrown away by the US Government alone. I would guess several trillion dollars. The US Government finds itself in the predicted horns of dilemma: they can devalue the dollar and potentially destroy those who would buy their debt. Or, they can finally let the crash happen, and watch several large sections of the economy implode, along with several government backed institutions like Fannie, Freddie, and several government pension funds, and the Fed.

I have always argued that the second option was always the best, because it would happen anyway, and the sooner done, the sooner it could be dealt with. Of course it would have been a lot easier to deal with before when the government hadn’t committed over 12 trillion (yes, trillion) dollars to making things worse. That’s roughly a year’s GDP. I think they’ll be lucky to get half of it back.

A little creative destruction right now would be a nice change from the status quo. At least after an implosion, all the poison would have been worked out the system.

Anyway, the financial crisis never went away. It was simply papered over with ridiculous amounts of printed money and reckless monetisation of bad debt. The semi-socialist states of Europe could not ever sustain their spending levels, and the USA has put itself on the hook for stupid amounts of money over the last year. When the rest of the world craters and the US loses buyers for its debt, we’ll be back to disaster as usual.

I don’t know when that will be, but I think the powers that be are running out of tricks, and places to hide bad debt. I would not be surprised by a ripple of sovereign debt defaults around the world. The ripples may take a long time to reach the USA, but they will come.

26Nov2009 | Ray | Comments Off | Continued
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News: Cash for Clunkers

The idea behind this program was to get old, inefficient, polluting cars off the road permanently.  It seems to be working.  I would like to see more programs like this that reward people for doing the right thing.

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30Oct2009 | Elizabeth Barrette | Comments Off | Continued
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Three Questions: “Why Billionaires Should Pay for the Jobless Recovery”

The gap between the richest and the poorest Americans has been growing for decades.  Wages and benefits for ordinary workers have stagnated or declined while rewards to supervisors, CEOs, and other powerful workers have skyrocketed.  The following article looks at some of the resulting problems and how these might be solved.

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27Oct2009 | Elizabeth Barrette | Comments Off | Continued
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News: “Farmers Markets Double Nationwide with White House Next Stop”

The Obama family continues to do wonderful things for America’s food supply. Not only does the White House now have an organic garden, but President Obama recently wished for a farmer’s market nearby — and he’s getting his wish.

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24Sep2009 | Elizabeth Barrette | Comments Off | Continued
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Three Questions: “Work Sharing”

Recently a friend tipped me to a program designed to help companies avoid laying off their employees during hard times.  It’s not perfect, but it seems promising and there is plenty of room for expansion.

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6Sep2009 | Elizabeth Barrette | Comments Off | Continued
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Three Questions: “Cash for Refrigerators”

Money from previous stimulus plans continues to trickle into the lethargic economy.  Some funds are aimed toward helping the environment as well as the economy.  The following article describes one program that encourages people to buy energy-efficient refrigerators.

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25Aug2009 | Elizabeth Barrette | Comments Off | Continued
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