Perspective on Today’s Market Events It looks like the U.S. stock market will finally get something that happens, on average, about once a year: a 10+% percent drop—the definition of a market correction. The last time this happened was a whopper—the Great Recession drop that caused U.S. stocks to drop more than 50%–so most people […]
A Healthy Year Ahead? According to professional forecasters around the world, the global economic landscape is healthy going into 2018—so much so that only three countries and one territory are expected to experience a downturn in their gross domestic product over the coming 12 months. The map and chart show which countries are growing fastest […]
Personal Robots The robotics revolution, so far confined to factories and the cute little device that roams your house sucking up dirt, is about to hit closer to home. In Japan, so-called “carerobos” are now helping workers look after the elderly in assisted living facilities. In one facility, a large-eyed humanoid named Pepper leads the […]
False Positive? We’ve all heard about as much as we can take about the U.S. Fed’s multi-part QE program, and similar stimulus programs instituted by the European Central Bank. What they mostly have in common is the purchase of government and certain mortgage-backed bonds on the world markets, which has the effect of holding down […]
Multiplying Disasters Does it seem to you that America is experiencing more than its share of natural disasters, and that there are more extreme weather events happening today than ever before? Turns out you’re right. Since 1970, the number of major storms, floods, earthquakes and heatwaves that cause at least ten deaths or prompt the […]
By now, you’ve surely watched with sympathy and concern as hurricane Harvey flooded America’s fourth largest city. You may remember seeing similar footage when Hurricane Katrina roared through New Orleans, and when superstorm Sandy roared through the most populous areas of New Jersey and New York. As you see Houston sitting in six feet of […]
You probably know that representatives from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. are meeting at this moment to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)—and, in the words of President Trump, get “a better deal for America.” But what IS NAFTA, and what are the chances that this time around the provisions will favor jobs […]
You’ve probably read about the troubled finances of Puerto Rico, the U.S. territory in the Caribbean that has issued more than $70 billion in municipal bonds, with no visible way to pay out the interest, much less the principal. Now Puerto Rican have overwhelmingly voted that they want their island territory to become the 51st […]
Archeologists have long traveled under the assumption that what we call the human race—the African hominids known to science as “homo sapiens”—evolved roughly 200,000 years ago in either southern or eastern Africa. Starting perhaps as early as 100,000 years ago, they migrated out of Africa and eventually displaced the European and Asian hominids known as […]
It’s not uncommon to hear people wish that we could return to the “good old days,” when the world seemed more prosperous. Of course, depending on how far you go back, the “good old days” might cover a time when the world was poised on the edge of a nuclear precipice, when the Soviet Union […]
