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Tag Archives: Economics

Econ for Everyone!

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To keep it 100, economics is boring. But it’s also a study of the way those with money spend it, accumulate it, and keep it. It’s all about how we keep on keepin’ on as well as how some of us gain incredible power.

In the intro to his book “Rules for Radicals”, Saul Alinsky state that where Machiavelli’s “The Prince” was a book on how the powerful can gain more and keep it, his book is for those without power to obtain it. The bottom line is that without understanding the mechanisms of power you have no chance of doing more than throwing a wrench into the works and hoping it hits a weak point.

Barataria is focusing itself on the same principle applied to the mother’s milk of power, economics. The premise is that economics should never be just for those who want to preserve the establishment but for those who want to take it on. And rather than simply write a book we’ll start with a party.

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Holiday Shopping 2015

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Like the stores that put out Christmas decorations before Halloween, it’s become a Barataria tradition to put up holiday sales projections in mid-October. Don’t blame us, that’s when they come out as retailers gear up for the mid-November rush.

Last year just over $600B in sales went out the doors at retail establishments, about 19% of their total for the year. $90B of that was online. 2014 was a big turning point, marking the biggest selling season since 2009. Will 2015 come in even bigger?

Retailers are counting on it, and that’s the prediction. A big holiday shopping season to launch us into a happier 2016.

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Republican Chaos, Democrats in Charge

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With Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) dropping out of the race to become Speaker of the House, the level of chaos in Congress has hit a new height. It’s hard to imagine what comes next in this intractable situation as nearly every option has become open – including the longshot possibility that a bi-partisan group of centrists might soon be in charge.

Will this open the floodgates and see something get done or will the gridlock become even more set in stone for the next year? Like the weather, everyone likes to complain about it but no one seems to do anything about it. But next year could be the year that Democrats actually do something and take control – of both the Senate and the House. This is actually possible if we seize the moment.

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Runnin’ on Empty

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The Feds are about to run out of money.

No, we’re not talking about a government shutdown – that was avoided when yet another continuing resolution was passed to keep it operating through December. After that we have no idea what will happen. What we do know is that the Federal Highway Trust Fund is set to expire on October 29 unless a new bill is passed, which hasn’t been done yet.

Unlike the larger federal budget the attention this is getting is scant at best, so the possibility that it will be lost in the shuffle is pretty high. The implications are rather vast because federal funding is what keeps highway construction moving along. Without it, everything might grind to a halt as early as November.

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Bad Jobs Numbers

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Last Friday the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Employment Report came out, and it was lousy. Instead of an expected gain of 200k jobs it came in at 142k – a miss of 58k or 29%. The reaction in the financial press was swift and conclusive – there is no way the Fed can raise interest rates given this weakness. But there’s a bigger problem with the report than that.

It honestly can’t be believed.

It’s fashionable to say that the BLS cooks these reports to get the results they want and that no one should believe the government reports in general. That’s a general paranoid delusion that is utterly unreasonable all around. But the reports can’t be taken as pure gospel when they don’t come in exactly where they should be because there is no way they can possibly be as accurate as is demanded.

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