Payrolls rolling on!

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 5, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments This morning payroll processing firm of massive proportion, Automatic Data Processing, reported that its estimate of December job creation in the United States was 297,000.  The expected gain by a gang of economists was 100,000. Analysis: Clearly this is a very, very favorable number.  For the first time since the Great Recession the job creation figure GREATLY exceeds its estimate.  It is...
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Acquisition activity surged in 2010

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 5, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments Thomson-Reuters data shows that merger and acquisition activity rose to $2.4 trillion in 2010.  This marks a 23.1% rise over 2009. Analysis: During the height of the Great Recession (March ’09) I pointed to the rise in merger activity as a sign that important elements of the U.S. economy were acting rationally.  That is, they were adhering to the core axioms of financial success. Financial...
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4 January 2011: Live Interview with The Copernicus Institute 12 January, 2011

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 4, 2011 in News & Events | 0 comments On 12 January, 2011 at 10am MST, 12 noon EST, I will be interviewed LIVE by The Copernicus Institute’s Steve Saenz. You can tune into the interview by clicking on the following link: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/copernicus-institute.  A replay will be available if you cannot tune in at the scheduled time.  I really hope that you are able to tune in!  The focus of the interview will be on...
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The sort of stock market surge I hate

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 4, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments Yesterday was party day across the world’s equity markets.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was up 0.8%, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock Index was up 1.1%, the NASDAQ Composite was up 1.5%, the German stock market was up 1.1%, the French stock market was up 2.5%, and the Stoxx Europe 600 was up 0.8%.  Supposedly the rise was triggered by encouraging data posted worldwide...
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Innovation plans, Chinese style

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 3, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments A recurring theme of the blog has been what qualifies as real economic growth (see for example: 8 October, 2008, 17 January, 2009 and why has the united states had so much innovation?).  I have long argued that real innovation is getting more from the same set of resource inputs or getting the same from a smaller set of resource inputs.  Innovation is ultimately what drives the health and wealth...
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Finally, ethical economists

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Dec 31, 2010 in Blog | 1 comment It seems appropriate to close out my second year as a blog writer with a topic near and dear to my heart: ethics in business… Prior to its annual meeting, the American Economic Association, has leaked to the New York Times that it intends to discuss a “code of ethics” for its membership to sign and, hopefully, adhere to in the future.  The A.E.A. has lagged other professional...
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Borrowers slowly reappear

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Dec 31, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments You may recall that I have been critical of the Federal Reserve’s plan to introduce money into the economy through both a lowering of interest rates and “quantitative easing.”  My point was that even with benchmark government interest rates at nearly zero, folks still weren’t exactly lining up to borrow money.  That appears to be changing. Thursday the Federal Reserve...
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