» Posted by Martin Weil on May 26, 2008

...an estimated 1% of America's wealth migrates into foreign hands every year.

So writes Pimco's Bill Gross in this June opinion piece. Gross proceeds to call Americans "overweight, poorly educated, overindulged, and imbued with such a sense of self importance" as he despairs of our declining global competitiveness and the public's seeming fixation on the trivial at the expense of the critical.

» Posted by Martin Weil on April 30, 2008

Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say. The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Reported by Neatorama

» Posted by Martin Weil on April 21, 2008

Some folks celebrate their last home mortgage payment by setting fire to their loan agreement. Lately, some people behind on their mortgages are simply setting fire to their homes.

From this article in the LA Times (registration required)

» Posted by Martin Weil on April 01, 2008

(Since it is the political season)

Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels' soon-to-be-released new book, analyzes the difference that the President's party affiliation makes to the distribution of income during the four years of the president's term.

When a Republican president is in power, people at the top of the income distribution experience much larger real income gains than those at the bottom... when a Democrat is in power: those who benefit the most are the lower income groups....Strikingly, compared to Republicans, Democratic presidents generate higher income gains for all income groups.

So writes Harvard economics professor Dani Rodrik

» Posted by Martin Weil on March 20, 2008

The short answer: low wages in China.

That at least according to economist Tyler Cowen, who says that the falling cost of most consumer items and their increasingly short product life cycle mean that stolen goods are not worth what they once were.

» Posted by Martin Weil on December 26, 2007

Blogger Eric de Place calculates that, for a typical driver, switching from an SUV that gets 16 MPG to a car that gets just 23 MPG (difference 7 MPG) will save twice as much gas each year as if a compact car driver getting 32 MPG switches to a Prius getting 47 MPG (difference 15 MPG). This counterintuitive result is a function of the curve shown below. Note that the steepest part of the curve (where the most gas is saved) occurs in the 5-20 MPG range.

Moral of the story: Environmentalists should forget hybrids and put their efforts on getting people out of their gas-guzzling SUV's and into Camrys, or even Cadillacs.

» Posted by Martin Weil on November 26, 2007

No? Neither did I.

In another astonishing accomplishment of globalization (the things must cost a fortune to ship), at least 1/4 of them are made by barefooted steelworkers in Bengal, India, according to this fascinating multimedia presentation from the NY Times.

» Posted by Martin Weil on October 05, 2007

Happiness among American men and women reaches its estimated minimum at approximately ages 49 and 45 respectively. This the conclusion in a recent NBER paper, Is Well-being U-Shaped over the Life Cycle?. Blanchflower and Oswald study happiness and life-satisfaction data for half a million Americans and Europeans ... The authors emphasize that, because their research controls for many other influences upon happiness and life satisfaction -- including income, education, and marriage -- these results should be read as truly describing well-being.

» Posted by Martin Weil on October 04, 2007

Did you know, or even imagine, that you could buy an abandoned ICBM missile silo on Ebay?

There's a hot market for demilitarized ICBM silos. There are three of them on offer at eBay right now, with the asking price of $500,000 per silo, which includes underground and above ground support facilities. Hundreds of ICBM silos have been sold off in the last twenty years ... Most of these are located in remote areas. For example, the three silo complex being offered on eBay sits on 57 acres in central Washington State.

From GeekPress

» Posted by Martin Weil on September 17, 2007

In the first Forbes 400 [1982], oil was the source of 22.8 percent of the fortunes, manufacturing 15.3 percent, finance 9 percent, and technology 3 percent. By 2006 oil had fallen to 8.5 percent and manufacturing to 8.5 percent. Technology, however, had risen to 11.75 percent and finance to an extraordinary 24.5 percent.
...
The average net worth in 2006 of Forbes 400 members without a college degree was $5.96 billion; those with a degree averaged $3.14 billion. Four of the five richest Americans -- Bill Gates, casino owner Sheldon Adelson, Oracle's Larry Ellison, and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen -- are college dropouts.
From All The Money in The World. Tip Marginal Revolution