The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has found a direct link between education level and the unemployment rate. The chart below is based on 2008 data.
Source: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Note: Data are 2008 averages of full-time workers over the age of 25.
It may not be surprising to you that people who possess [...]
As of May 2009, the official unemployment rate is 9.4% . However, the real unemployment rate is 16.4% . If it seems hard to believe, check out the BLS’ numbers for yourself. More and more people are out of work each month. The jobless number is downright frightening. But why is the actual unemployment rate [...]
I believe that we have fundamental problems in our economy that are not going to be solved anytime soon. We are not, in my opinion, in an economic dip that we will come out of in a few years. The good news is that we have all the technology we need to have a successful [...]
A lot of Americans have fallen on hard times and are unable to pay their credit card debt. Sometimes the original creditor is willing to settle for a percentage of the original debt — 20% to 60% of the original sum, for example. It is also typical for an account to be turned over to [...]
Borrowing from the playbook of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the way that I would get the housing market and the economy back on track would be to work directly through the Treasury Department. In 1963, President Kennedy issued an executive order that gave the Treasury the right to issue “United States Notes.” This is in contrast [...]
I have always wondered how big my bag of loot would be if we divvied up every single dollar of United States currency equally among the citizens. I’m not talking about dollar bills in circulation; I’m referring to the entire money supply. Before we get to the final number, I will point out that one [...]
According to the U.S. Treasury, the national debt stands at $10.6 trillion. That works out to a debt load of almost $35,000 per person or $95,000 per U.S. household. You might have also heard that last year’s deficit was around $162 billion. Yes, the government did spend $162 billion more than it took in via [...]
CPI is the measure of inflation provided to us by the government. In parts 1-5 of this series, I talked about how the current CPI calculation varies from the way CPI was calculated prior to 1983. The graph below says it all.
Courtesy of ShadowStats.com
The above graph is courtesy of John Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics website. [...]
If you haven’t read parts one, two and three of this series on inflation, you might want to read those first.
The 1999 Switch to a New Formula
In 1999 the weight given to items in the CPI index was changed from straight arithmetic to geometric weighting. Instead of straight math, the new formula puts more weight [...]
If you haven’t read parts one and two of this series, you might want to go back and read those before you read part 3.
As we have discussed in the previous segments of this series, the CPI index is a measure of inflation. Now I will address how I think the way CPI is calculated [...]
We know that inflation means more money chasing the same amount of goods. It means that it costs $7.25 to see the same movie you could have seen last month for $7.00. That extra quarter is inflation. In part 1, we learned that the government produces the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in an effort to [...]
In this 6-part series, I am going to attempt to explain something that affects all of us but something that few of us understand — inflation. If you stick with me through this series, you will find out why I think that the way inflation is calculated contributed to — or perhaps caused — the [...]
More than a year ago, one of our congressmen made a prediction. He said that he wouldn’t be surprised to see the national debt rise in one year by three-quarters of a trillion dollars — a $750-billion-dollar prediction. Now the bailout is a reality. The prediction is made at the 1:49 mark of the clip [...]
When information gets stolen, it is used in various ways. Sometimes the thief may use it to drain your bank account, for example. According to the Federal Trade Commission, 20% of the time stolen information is used to open new accounts.
Fortunately, there is a way to help prevent new accounts from being opened in your [...]
I have been asked several times lately to do a reciprocal link, which basically works like this: Hey Wade — I’ll link to your site if you’ll link to mine. Mind you that these requests are from total strangers, although they are people in the real estate business. Such a request seems innocuous, but in [...]
Every three months the FDIC issues their “Quarterly Banking Profile.” Most people — even serious investors and Wall Street — have never paid these reports much mind. With the credit crunch, however, people are starting to pay attention. The latest report is chock-full of scary statistics. For starters, insured commercial banks reported net income of [...]
The Wall Street Journal has reported that the FDIC may have to go to the Treasury Department to borrow money in order to handle a rash of bank failures. It begs the question: how safe is your money, anyway?
The FDIC was created in 1933, spurred into existence by the vast number of bank failures during [...]
Every quarter, the Federal Reserve releases the “Senior Loan officer Opinion Survey.” The current survey data is based on the responses from 52 domestic banks and 21 U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks. Essentially, the Federal Reserve does a sampling to estimate how many banks are “tightening or loosening” and on what types of [...]
When it comes to credit score, there has long been a loophole in the scoring model. Authorized users have been allowed to “piggyback” on the credit scores of others. This has been a great way to boost credit score in preparation for buying your first house, for example. It goes like this. You graduate from [...]
RSS