Macroeconomics

November 18, 2011

Health Insurance Dilemmas

Assume for a moment that you are slim, love broccoli and run 4 miles each day. Should your health insurance premium be lower than the amount […]

November 17, 2011

Ben Franklin’s Turkey

The bald eagle is our national bird but, according to Ben Franklin, the turkey should have been. In a letter to his daughter, he explains why. […]

November 16, 2011

The Supreme Court and the Health-Care Law

How to understand what the Supreme Court will look at when they decide whether parts of the health-care act are constitutional? In an excellent interactive graphic, […]

November 14, 2011

European Ties

How to picture the US/European economic partnership? You could think of Skippy Peanut Butter. Owned by Unilever, a multinational based in the UK and the Netherlands, […]

November 12, 2011

Presidential Wagers

 Looking at the University of Iowa GOP Iowa Caucus Market, you could create these headlines: “Gingrich gains.” “Cain crashes.” Perry plummets. Romney remains. With quotes indicated […]

November 11, 2011

Car Rentals and Cuban Houses

Have you ever washed a rented car? Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers tells us that, “In the history of the world,” no one has. For rental […]

November 9, 2011

“Tweakers”

Referring to Steve Jobs, most of us think of innovation and entrepreneurship. Like Thomas Friedman in “(Steve) Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs,” we imagine business starters and […]

November 8, 2011

The Future of Oil

When will we run out of oil? A room full of pistachios might have the answer. In the first several pages of The Invisible Heart: An […]

November 5, 2011

Leaving the Euro

Would you like to win 250,000 British pounds? Predicting that a nation’s euro zone exit would be catastrophic unless properly managed, a UK businessman has sponsored […]

November 4, 2011

Frozen Jeans

Being a responsible citizen of the earth might mean freezing your jeans. According to Levi’s, one pair of jeans, from its inception in the cotton field […]

November 3, 2011

Are You A Good Investor?

Good investing takes us to our emotions. But not quite how you might expect. Our brains don’t like random events. Instead, we prefer patterns, especially pleasing […]