Important Note:
Opinions are fun. My friends tell me I am someone with lots of opinions and that's fine since I don't get mad at others when they disagree with me. In this same spirit I am interested in hearing yours views as long as you are able to share your views without boiling over. I look forward to hearing from you. I tend to write in the form of short essays most of the time, but contributions do not need to be in this same format or size. Some of the content here will date itself pretty quickly, other content may be virtually timeless, this is for the reader to judge.
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How do you judge income inequality?
Posted at: Aug/03/2013 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Economics, People,
I don’t consider myself a news junkie, but I do read a lot. Some of my reading is for entertainment, some is for education. I like to think I can hold an intelligent conversation with just about anyone on a broad range of topics. To fulfill this personal mission takes a lot of reading on current events. One of the most common practices in our media today is the use of statistics. Numbers and .....read more…
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The Dow at a record high…?
Posted at: Mar/07/2013 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Economics, Perspectives,
Did you hear the news? The Dow Jones Industrial Average (aka the Dow) closed today at a record high of 14,254, easily blowing past the previous record set in October of 2007 at 14,198. After the 2007 peak, the Dow plummeted 54% for the next 18 months, finding a bottom in March of 2009 at 6,547. I would like to say that I feel real good about this news, heck…numbers don’t lie; Unfortunately, some.....read more…
How steep is the fiscal cliff?
Posted at: Dec/10/2012 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Economics,
With the November 2012 election behind us, President Obama is again seated in the oval office. Yet the Republicans still control the House of Representatives. It would be easy to argue that the election resolved nothing and despite the rhetoric, no one actually got a clear mandate from the people. In the spirit of the status quo, we still have all the same personalities facing off at the nego.....read more…
Makers, Takers and a Little Truth
Posted at: Sep/28/2012 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Behavior, Economics, Perspectives,
It all began just a few days ago. With the Obama/Romney Presidential race of 2012 in its final 60 days it is still pretty much a dead heat. It is unfortunate, but neither candidate has offered anything positive that you would want to follow. Instead, it has been a campaign of negatives and attacks forcing voters to decide who they dislike the least. It is also an era where there are no secrets.....read more…
The Eurozone, only half a solution
Posted at: Jun/07/2012 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Economics, World Watching,
Let me paint a background. It is June of 2012 and the great recession has been under way for 4 years. Economist and politicians claim the recession ended nearly 2 years ago, but for those of us in the real world those words are merely words. As tough as things may seem in America, they are worse in Europe. Ireland has adopted austerity rules imposed by Germany and is currently borrowing at over.....read more…
We Need to Stop Being Cheap About Education
Posted at: Feb/27/2012 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Economics, Watching America,
We have been in a recession for a couple of years now. I would presume that virtually everyone reading this has been impacted, or at the least knows someone who has suffered from our economic downturn. I know, it would seem like this subject has been talked to death. I have definitely written on the subject previously. This time my concern will be more sociological in nature and the choices we ap.....read more…
Maybe we should be spending?
Posted at: Jul/11/2011 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Economics, Politics & Gov,
I can’t begin to guess the number of times I have channel surfed in recent months only be barraged by either “You can’t spend your way out of a recession”, or “you can’t borrow your way out of debt.” In our modern era of rapid fire media, both lines make excellent “sound bites”, but I am beginning to question how relevant either line is despite being very clever. The more I ponder this, the more.....read more…
Productivity or Fear
Posted at: May/03/2011 : Posted by: mel
It has been a couple of years since the “Great Recession of 2008” started. When I turn on the news or check out online articles I see reports that unemployment is down and productivity is up. I suppose it has to be presented this way; our leaders need to sound like cheerleaders in the hope of spurring things forward. I suspect that being able to creatively interpret statistics for your boss is .....read more…
Gas prices and rollercoaster’s
Posted at: Apr/28/2011 : Posted by: mel
Have you heard the rumor, apparently the price of gas as finally “plateaued.” I really hate hearing that because it gets my expectations up, then I just get disappointed. I have hiked and explored a lot of the southwest and know what a plateau looks like. Most plateaus are pretty symmetrical so I would hope for prices to fall as fast as they climb, but it never seems to works that way. Ultimat.....read more…
A two Party Debt
Posted at: Apr/14/2011 : Posted by: mel
Numbers have always intrigued me; they represent a specific understanding or measurement of something as opposed to a subjective definition. The current US national debt is hovering around $14 trillion dollars. For most people, despite being a number, $14 trillion is so large it is difficult to grasp and becomes subjective anyway. A little bit of simple division may help bring this big number b.....read more…
