What’s Trending

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 6, 2014

The Invention That Started to Close the Gender Gap

Worrying that labor saving devices would replace her, Downton Abbey’s cook, Mrs. Patmore, was not pleased with the new electric mixer that arrived in her kitchen […]

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 […]

May 16, 2012

Learning From the Low End

Sometimes it’s better to be at the bottom than the top. Explaining, Harvard’s Clay Christensen starts his story with the huge integrated steel firms and ends […]

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 […]