Category: U.S. Economy

American Crime Rate Declines

rickpace1Leave a comment

There may also be a medical reason for the decline in crime. For decades, doctors have known that children with lots of lead in their blood are much more likely to be aggressive, violent and delinquent. In 1974, the Environmental Protection Agency required oil companies to stop putting lead in gasoline. At the same time, lead in paint was banned for any new home (though old buildings still have lead paint, which children can absorb).

Tests have shown that the amount of lead in Americans’ blood fell by four-fifths between 1975 and 1991. A 2007 study by the economist Jessica Wolpaw Reyes contended that the reduction in gasoline lead produced more than half of the decline in violent crime during the 1990s in the U.S. and might bring about greater declines in the future. Another economist, Rick Nevin, has made the same argument for other nations.

Maybe the EPA might actually be doing some good!

Article

Opinion Poll on Politics and the Economy

rickpace1Leave a comment

I just noticed an opinion poll announcement at CNN on Barack Obama.  The following quote caught my eye:

Forty-eight percent say that another Great Depression is likely to occur in the next year – the highest that figure has ever reached. The survey also indicates that just under half live in a household where someone has lost a job or are worried that unemployment may hit them in the near future. The poll was conducted starting Friday, when the Labor Department reported that the nation’s jobless rate edged up to 9.1 percent.

Neurodiversity

rickpace1Leave a comment

From an Amazon comment on Tyler Cowen’s Create Your Own Economy:

Cowen envelops his economic points in a broader discussion of autism and its cognitive strengths, suggesting that these strengths are particularly important in this model of economy creation, and advocating for more use and acknowledgement of these strengths, particularly ordering and sequencing of specialized information, as well as a bias toward objectivity over emotionalism. Cowen also states the case that autism is not a separate condition out there from which a few suffer, but rather one point on the scale of what he calls neurodiversity, a scale on which all of us obviously must fall, some finding themselves closer to the autism point, others further.

The $147 Million per Year Story

rickpace1Leave a comment

On February 18, Republicans in the House of Representatives defeated an obscure amendment to the House Appropriations bill by a 2-to-1 margin. The Kind Amendment would have eliminated $147 million dollars that the federal government pays every year directly to Brazilian cotton farmers. In an era of nationwide belt tightening, with funding for things like education and the U.S. Farm Bill on the chopping block, defending payments to Brazilian farmers may seem curious.

Article

Size of the Federal Government

rickpace1Leave a comment

Given all the buzz I have heard over the past few years about Federal government size, spending, waste, etc. I did a bit of research on the Federal government as an employer over the past 50 years.

The U.S. population has approximately doubled in the years since 1946. Current total Federal employees is somewhat above 3 million. Federal employees per capita has gone down significantly over the period.

From an earlier post,  tax rates have also gone down significantly in the last 60 years.

Addendum from Hank Weed:

Are Tax Rates in the U.S. High or Low?

rickpace1Leave a comment

…. federal taxes are at their lowest level in more than 60 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that federal taxes would consume just 14.8 percent of G.D.P. this year. The last year in which revenues were lower was 1950, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

The postwar annual average is about 18.5 percent of G.D.P. Revenues averaged 18.2 percent of G.D.P. during Ronald Reagan’s administration; the lowest percentage during that administration was 17.3 percent of G.D.P. in 1984.

In short, by the broadest measure of the tax rate, the current level is unusually low and has been for some time. Revenues were 14.9 percent of G.D.P. in both 2009 and 2010.

Article

Two Troubling Issues

rickpace1Leave a comment

In trying to develop our business plan for a Rhode Island Farmland Fund, I’ve been interrupted today by two friends….with news from other friends…that reinforce two of my biggest cultural anxieties. The first is an excerpt from John Phipps whom I consider a voice of reason in the industrial agriculture community. He is speaking about the current debate on the national debt ceiling:

I think many assume there is a script somewhere and the actors are just peaking the dramatic tension. I do not. I think we are being led by badly misinformed, power-motivated politicians who would just as soon push the economy back into recession on the gamble it would be blamed on their opponent.

Because we really don’t know how this failure would play out, there seems to be a curious sense of “Let’s find out!” floating around DC-wannabees. After all, if it goes very badly there will be plenty of mud to be splashed on everyone, and perhaps more of it will stick to the other guy. If you are currently out of power, there could be a “What do we have to lose?” mentality.

The other was an email from Peter Gengler with a link to an article on global warming driven by the thought of Bill McKibben:

Article

McKibben speaks about the need for radical action on carbon emissions.

How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis

rickpace1Leave a comment

A perhaps narrow-minded (a number of reasons for food cost increases), but still informative article on commodity price increases. If you believe what it reports, it is a startling commentary on shortsided human greed. I’m interested to hear any other insights.

The money tells the story. Since the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000, there has been a 50-fold increase in dollars invested in commodity index funds. To put the phenomenon in real terms: In 2003, the commodities futures market still totaled a sleepy $13 billion. But when the global financial crisis sent investors running scared in early 2008, and as dollars, pounds, and euros evaded investor confidence, commodities — including food — seemed like the last, best place for hedge, pension, and sovereign wealth funds to park their cash. “You had people who had no clue what commodities were all about suddenly buying commodities,” an analyst from the United States Department of Agriculture told me. In the first 55 days of 2008, speculators poured $55 billion into commodity markets, and by July, $318 billion was roiling the markets. Food inflation has remained steady since.

Article