Archive for the ‘Economics’ Category

Why Do Recessions Happen?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released numbers yesterday stating that, non-farm payroll employment continued to decline in June (-467,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.5 percent. Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services, and construction. This means that roughly 14.7 [...]

July 2, 2009   Posted in: Economics  No Comments

GM and Market Overexuberance?

Yesterday, General Motors had to remind investors that when it emerges from bankruptcy, its common stock will be worthless. Why did they have to do this? Well, apparently GM stock has undergone several days straight of heavy trading, and they cannot really figure out why anyone is buying up equity that will soon be worthless.
According [...]

July 2, 2009   Posted in: Economics  No Comments

Flying and Child Safety Seats

There is a thread currently going on at Flyertalk, my favorite website, about whether or not to mandate child safety seats for small children, who currently travel in their parent’s lap. The reasoning is that in any heavy turbulence, a parent may not be able to hold the child, thus putting that child in danger. [...]

June 30, 2009   Posted in: Economics, Policy  No Comments

GM Bailout: Lessons from Amtrak?

In a post on the Daily Beast, Economist James Langenfeld draws a number of lessons  between General Motors and Amtrak. You should read his post, but the point is that, like Amtrak, the US government has made a giant commitment to GM with no real signs of profitability anytime soon. He points out that, “It [...]

June 21, 2009   Posted in: Economics, Policy  No Comments

Airlines Come Back to Earth

It’s hard to write a post about the current state of air travel without making any crashing references, but that’s probably not entirely appropriate in the wake of the US Airways crash landing on the Hudson. The current state of the four major carriers is just that, however, crashing down, down, down. AMR, the parent [...]

January 22, 2009   Posted in: Economics  No Comments