Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Debt

I'm often asked about the "problem" our debt represents. Below is a largely good video explaining who holds the debt and the "problem" it presents. One VERY important caveat. While the author gets the idea correct that what matters is publicly outstanding debt, since inter-government debt is merely a wash, he does not accurately address this same issue when talking about bonds as financial assets. Remember that a US government bond is an asset to the holder, but a liability to the tax payer. We care about our net position as tax payers. Also, from an economic perspective, bond holders and tax payers are not the same people, so there are distributional consequences to changes in the level of the debt. But with that said this might help somewhat.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Great Questions

Pulled from Marginal Revolution:
What will result from the intersection of two possible trends: insistence on a greater equality in health care outcomes, and the development of new technologies -- some at the genetic level for the individual -- which will lead to a greater inequality of health care outcomes?

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Sales Taxes

The Tax Foundation has updated their data on state and local sales tax here.


Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Credit Scores

Credit Scores by email address. Google beats Yahoo.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Finances Altered?

I believe the findings of this survey, support what I have been saying.

"This new survey points to a profound shift in the way people think about their saving and spending," said Eric Eve, senior vice president of global community relations at Citi. "The current economic environment is altering, perhaps permanently, the way we think about spending money."

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Taxes

Bruce Bartlett interviewed by Ezra Klein on taxes here. The most frustrating thing for economists, is the truism of this statement:
One reason I've been more sympathetic to a carbon tax than other conservatives is that if you did it right it would be pretty close to a VAT. One of the objections a lot of us have to cap-and-trade is that it's too easily manipulated. It sounds good in theory, but once in the political meat-grinder, its failures become overwhelming.
How many times can we say that? Its a good idea in theory, but the political process will make a mess of it. When will demand our politicians take the time to understand a little economics?

Monday, July 13, 2009

Consumer Sentiment

The recent consumer sentiment figures were not good.
Its preliminary index of confidence for July fell to a reading of 64.6 from the final reading for June of 70.8.


July's preliminary reading was well below economists' median forecast for 70.5 and the first fall in the index since February.
In April I presented the results for the local consumer sentiment index:

Sunday, June 7, 2009

La Crosse Economic Forum

Here are the slides from my presentation.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

New Google Feature

Want to see the current unemployment rate for La Crosse plotted against previous observations? Simply type "unemployment rate la crosse" into google and the first hit will produce a google chart. Or hit the link here.


Hat tip: Lifehacker.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Job Losses

Are actually a recent phenomenon in the 7 Rivers Region. Check out this animation from Slate.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

April 2009 Slides

Thanks to everyone who came to the Indicators Breakfast. My slides can be found below.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Foreclosures

Matt Kures, GIS specialist, from UW-Extension put together some maps with foreclosures for each county.

La Crosse

click on picture for full size.

Other Counties can be found here.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Hunger Task Force

The Slides from a recent presentation to the Hunger Task Force Conference.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

December 2008 Consumer Sentiment

In December of 2008 I conducted the semi-annual consumer sentiment survey for the 7 Rivers Region.  Approximately 1,100 current and past participants in 7 Rivers Region events were emailed a link to the survey. 238 responses were received.  The overall index for consumer sentiment in the 7 Rivers Region actually rose slightly in December 2008 to 70.9 from 69.9 in August 2008. Whereas the rest of the nation experienced a decline in overall sentiment from 61.2 to 60.1. According to Bloomberg:

“It’s a difficult environment for households right now,” Dean Maki, co-head of U.S. economic research at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “The job market is weighing on confidence. We are seeing activity just falling off.”

The confidence index was forecast to rise to 61.9, according to the median of 54 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Estimates ranged from 60 to 65. A preliminary report earlier this month showed a reading of 61.9.

A Commerce Department report earlier today showed the economy shrank at a 3.8 percent pace in the fourth quarter of 2008, the weakest growth pace since 1982. Consumer spending contracted at a 3.5 percent rate in the last three months of 2008.
 
Turning to the current conditions index, based on a subset of questions which ask respondents how they are doing now and how they have been doing over the last year. Again, we appear to have done a bit better than the rest of the nation. The 7 Rivers Region current conditions index rose from 76.5 in August of 2008 to 87.0 in December of 2008. The national index fell from 73.1 to 69.5 in August.
Turning to future expectations. The local expectations index appears to have taken the biggest hit, with the index of future expectations from 65.6 to 60.6. The national number rose from 53.5 to 57.8 over the same interval.

Sunday, January 25, 2009