It’s a good thing I’m spending my weekend in New York; the governor of New Jersey shut down the state’s government because the politicians couldn’t agree on a budget. It’s illegal for the state to spend money without an operating budget, so state services, including the casinos in Atlantic City, have been shut down for ... Continue reading this article…

The federal government announced the other day that they will investigate price gouging by gas stations. The announcement itself may have helped to ease prices a little, but most of the time, the investigators report that price movement is merely due to the forces of supply and demand. I heard on the radio this morning ... Continue reading this article…

It’s time for some numbers from the government. In February, consumer spending rose 0.1 percent and personal income grew 0.3 percent. Even though the income gain was higher than the spending gain as a percentage, we are on average spending more than we have available. Living above our means in the American way, and I don’t see ... Continue reading this article…

Jeremy Siegel is asking which political party is better for the economy: Republicans or Democrats. He kills the suspense only a few paragraphs into the story (and I’ll spoil it for you): Despite the behavior of the market during the last Presidential election, over longer periods of time, the stock market has done significantly better ... Continue reading this article…

I generally like the articles Bill Fleckenstein writes for his “Contrarian Chronicles” column at MSN Money. Today he published an article about the way the government manipulates the rules of arithmetic to maintain an happy economic outlook. Here’s the first example: unemployment. If unemployment data are calculated using the same methods that were used during ... Continue reading this article…

The Consumer Price Index declined 0.1 percent last month but the core CPI (excluding food and energy costs) rose 0.2 percent. This seems to mean that while energy costs went down, perhaps rebounding from highs due to natural catastrophes last year, those costs didn’t decline enough to bring prices of other items down.

On Marketplace last night, Robert Reich talked about a cognitive disconnection regarding the American economy. While the country’s gross national product has been increasing, individuals (other than the top 20 percent) haven’t been seeing any benefits from the increased productivity. Usually increased productivity goes hand-in-hand with increased wealth. Rather than income and net worth increasing with ... Continue reading this article…