The Most Expensive Cities in the World Every year, The Economist magazine surveys the Worldwide Cost of Living, looking at 160 expense items across 133 countries. There are a lot of interesting tidbits to be found in the report, but perhaps the most interesting is a list of the most expensive cities in the […]
The Slack in the Labor Market The U.S. unemployment rate has been dropping steadily ever since it reached 10% during the awful depth of the Great Recession; the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that today only 4.1% of Americans are out of work, the lowest rate in nearly two decades. But most of […]
The Personal Trainer On Your Wrist When you think of artificial intelligence, enhancing your lifespan is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. But a new kind of fitness app is giving us a glimpse of a future where your lifestyle can be monitored in real time for its impact on […]
Currencies and Protectionism There is no question, if the Trump Administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs lead to carefully-targeted tit-for-tat retaliations against American products around the world, the resulting trade war scenario would be terrible for the global economy. Many analysts have dismissed this escalating protectionist future as unlikely, saying that cooler heads are likely […]
Cause for Alarm? Quietly, without a lot of fanfare, the U.S. national debt moved past $20 trillion last September 8. On March 15, it exceeded $21 trillion. The next time the debt ceiling will come up for a vote is March 1, 2019, at which point the total could be another $2-3 […]
The History of Bond Rates—Past as Prologue? Although stocks get the most attention, bonds are significant contributors, both to your total return on your portfolio, and also to the prices of every other investment. Bonds compete with stocks and real estate for investment dollars; when their yields are high, it causes a shift in demand […]
How to Argue These days, it seems like everybody is arguing about everything, and with perhaps a bit more… energy than in years past. And it turns out that most of us are going about our arguments all wrong. Author Daniel Pink has pointed out that most of the arguments going on today involve two […]
Much Ado About… You may have heard about the “Trump Tariffs;” that is, the proposed 25% surtax on all steel imports coming into the U.S. from foreign manufacturers, and a similar 10% surtax on aluminum. The markets certainly noticed; they fell dramatically after the announcement, as investors feared that the move would spark a global […]
Tech Advances to Watch What are the most important technological advances from the past year? Every year, MIT Technology Review provides its answers to the question, with an eye toward the innovations that will have the greatest impact on consumers. This year’s list includes 3D metal printing; that is, printing metal parts quickly and cheaply, […]
The Future of Retail Chances are you know there is a sea change going on in the retail industry. But you may not realize how far and how fast the online tide is rising. Singularity University founder Peter Diamandis invites you to recall the powerful retail networks created by Sears, J.C. Penney and Macy’s. Since […]
