International Trade

February 13, 2014

Problems With Grade Deflation

The number of hours we study is down and our grades are up. Between 1961 and 2003, full time college students diminished their study time from […]

January 11, 2014

Happy Birthday to a Great Father (of our economy)

When you sing happy birthday to Alexander Hamilton today, please just think of an upward sloping (logarithmic) economic growth line:   Today, 257–or maybe 259–years ago […]

January 5, 2014

One Reason That Geography Matters

Have you ever looked closely at Japan and the United Kingdom? Described by geographer Jared Diamond in a fascinating podcast, they look remarkably similar. Today Japan […]

October 22, 2013

Restaurant Economics: How to Make 1500 Meals a Day

At 2 am, converging at the delivery entrance of Balthazar in NY’s SoHo are mussels from New Zealand, russet potatoes from Idaho, steak from the Midwest and chicken breast […]

November 28, 2011

The First Credit Default Swap

Some of the euro zone’s problems actually started with the Exxon Valdez oil spill. After the 1989 Exxon Valdez calamity, when an Alaska jury said that […]

November 27, 2011

Happy Pecan Farmers

With soaring demand from China and less supply in the U.S., you have some very happy pecan farmers. However, they have one big problem. Theft. Armed […]

November 20, 2011

California and Kentucky

Could we compare California’s relationship with Kentucky to Germany and Greece? Somewhat like Germany and Greece… California and Kentucky share the same currency. California has a […]

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 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 […]