"The establishment is trying to pull a big one over on the public yet again. One of the designated topics for the last presidential debate goes under the heading, "debt and entitlements." This should have people upset for several reasons.
The first is simply the use of the term "entitlements." While this has a clear meaning to policy wonks, it is likely that most viewers won't immediately know that "entitlements" means the Social Security and Medicare their parents receive. It's a lot easier for politicians to talk about cutting wasteful "entitlements" than taking away seniors' Social Security and Medicare.
The ostensible purpose of the debate is to allow voters to be better informed about the candidates' views. So if the purpose is conveying information, why not use terms that most voters will understand?"
"For decades, economists have puzzled over the reduction in macroeconomic volatility in the U.S. and world economies after the mid-1980s: In the last 25 years or so of the 20th century (highlighted by the blue bar in the graph), domestic output, employment, and inflation all fluctuated far less than they had in prior years. The data make the stabilization of the economy clear, yet economists haven’t reached consensus over the causes or duration of the Great Moderation."
"The Federal Reserve points to monetary policy as a primary cause of the moderation, through orderly responses to inflation and GDP changes after the Great Inflation of the 1980s. Instead of waiting for the signs of economic recession or rising inflation to appear before acting, as was common in the “go-stop” practices of the 1960s and 1970s, the Federal Reserve began following a more systematic, rules-based approach. Another proposed cause is the structural change of the economy and the labor market. In the 1980s, labor patterns shifted away from manufacturing and toward less-volatile sectors. Also, new technology sped up communication and allowed producers to track inventory and demand more easily, leading to more stable output over time."
"It’s easy to look to clear economic and policy changes as contributors to the Great Moderation, but there may be another factor at play: luck. Statistical models such as those proposed by Stock and Watson or Galí and Gambetti assert that, although some economic shocks did occur during the early part of the Great Moderation, they were less severe and better handled than those of the 1970s. While others dispute this claim, it still brings to mind the question: If luck is responsible, how long will it last?"
"Puerto Rico is devastated. Two hurricanes plunged the island into darkness and despair. Crops perish in the fields. The landscape of ruined buildings and towns resemble Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped on it. Over three million people are desperate for food, water, electricity and shelter. "
"After a slow start, the Trump Administration is now speeding up the flow of supplies to the island. A top US general has been given command of the relief efforts. And, like so many others, Yarimar Bonilla watches with a broken heart as her native Puerto Rico struggles. This noted social anthropologist – a scholar on Caribbean societies — says the hurricanes have made an already bad fiscal and economic crisis worse, and she sees darker times ahead unless major changes are made in the structure of power and in Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States.'
About a week ago, I misplaced my credit card. At the time, I didn’t think much about it, and went ahead and canceled my card and had them mail me a new card. They told me it would be only 7-10 business days, and I assumed that was just a worse case scenario, but it turns out it wasn’t. It took a week and half for my new card to arrive.
I am somebody who prefers to us his credit card for as many purchases as possible. This way I don’t have to worry about losing spare change and I can keep better track of my purchases. I have a rewards card, but honestly, I don’t really care that much about the rewards. If I get rewards, so be it. I sometimes use them, sometimes I don’t.
Generally, I avoid auto-pay services like the plague. I know they can be budget busters. I buy refills for my phone every 6 months or a year, which is a bigger payment upfront, but I save later on. That does get withdrawn from the credit card, but not until next year. Always good to pay up front, borrowing sucks. I will have to update that later on. I do auto-pay by rent, electric and gas bill, and car and renter insurance directly from my bank. I don’t have cable TV or Internet, and haul my own trash to the transfer station. Fine, but those are essential, especially living in a rented apartment in the city. When I eventually move off grid, I won’t have any of those expenses except maybe car insurance.
I didn’t think it would be a real issue, until I remember my bus pass was linked to the credit card. I had forgotten my password to my CDTA Navigator bus pass service, so I had to get it reset because I was locked out of my account. So I had to wait a day for that to be reset by CDTA. Fine, but of course the buses take up to “two days” to sync money added to your card to the buses, because they load the fare data via wireless internet once a day, when the buses are returned to the garage for the night, and the fare boxes are unloaded. Fine. It turns out I had enough money to cover my bus fares but I kept a few extra quarters and bucks in my wallet.
Other then that, I didn’t anticipate much issues, although my debit card didn’t seem to work everywhere. I had that issue at Stewarts’ the other day. I don’t like only having the debit card, as I’d rather have two options for payment in case one card doesn’t work. I don’t carry much cash, and if my debit card fails for some reason, I really prefer to use my credit card. Moreover, the credit card is easier to manage – I don’t have to worry about overdrafting it – and it’s easier to review expenditures and pay it all off at once.
"Online payment systems like Venmo and Paypal are benchmarks of the digital era of banking that we're living in. There's also Zelle, a new peer-to-peer payment app launched by big banks like J.P. Morgan and Bank of America. So you might expect paper checks to be disappearing, but Americans just won't let their checkbooks go. In the U.S., people wrote about 38 checks on average in 2015, compared to 18 in Canada, 8 in the U.K., and almost none in Germany. Katie Robertson wrote a piece about Americans’ attachment to checks for Bloomberg. Marketplace's Kai Ryssdal spoke to her about why Americans are refusing to get with the economic times. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation. "
"Yet it’s the decline of industries like coal and manufacturing that get the big attention, especially from politicians. That’s surprising, since the closings mean that retail, which employs about 10 percent of all working Americans, is shedding jobs at a rate that dwarfs either of those. The retail sector shed 6,100 positions in June this year alone, according to the Labor Department. Since 2001, employment at department stores like Sears and JCPenney has declined 46 percent. An estimated 89,000 employees in “general merchandise” stores were laid off between October 2016 and April 2017 – more than the entire workforce of the US coal industry."