December unemployment situation, better, not best

Good morning everyone.  I hope that this post finds each of you doing well! The Department of Labor announced just a short while ago the following data about the U.S. unemployment situation: Private sector jobs up 113,000 vs. expectations of 150,000 jobs to be created...

‘Our culture of lying’ strikes again

Thursday’s Wall Street Journal reported that AT&T has started calling its wireless network a 4G network.  That’s the form of it.  The substance is that the network is identical to the 3G network it had up until the moment of its press release.  That...

Contexts are powerful

Today’s New York Times has an article entitled, “A Bonanza in TV Sales Fades Away” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/technology/06sets.html?_r=1&ref=business) that is an excellent example of the need for contexts, as featured in my book The...

Labor market clearly improving

This morning the Department of Labor released weekly jobless claims data (I can’t wait to not feel like I have to report this data).  The results are encouraging.  While the weekly number showed an increase in jobless claims of 18,000 to a total of 409,000, the...

Another Chinese (not Panda) bear

Andy Xie, ex-Morgan Stanley economist, seems to be drawing similar conclusions as me when looking at the Chinese economy.  Writing for China Century Weekly he made many similar statements to those I made in my 2011 Predictions post. For example, I said the following:...