Quotation of the Day: Sports Socialism

"The Olympics are a giant exercise in sports socialism—or crony capitalism, if you prefer—where the profits are privatized and the costs socialized. The games never pay for themselves because they are designed not to. That’s because the International Olympic Committee (an opaque “nongovernmental” bureaucracy made up of fat cats from various countries) pockets most of the revenue from sponsorships and media rights (allegedly to promote global sports), requiring the host country to pay the bulk of the costs. Among the very few times the games haven’t...

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America's Energy Jackpot: Industrial Natural Gas Prices Fall to the Lowest Level in Recent History

The Department of Energy released its monthly update today on natural gas production and prices through May, and the chart above displays inflation-adjusted natural gas prices for commercial and industrial users.  By end user in May, industrial customers represented about 32% of natural gas consumption and electric power companies used almost half (49%) of the total natural gas consumed. Together, industrial and electric power customers consumed...

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Happy100th Birthday Milton Friedman!

Milton Friedman was born on this day, July 31, in 1912 and he would have been 100 years old today.  Unfortunately, Milton died on November 16, 2006 when he was 94 years old.  Coincidentally, that was just several months after the Carpe Diem blog started in September 2006.  A custom Google search of Carpe Diem reveals that "Milton Friedman" has "appeared" on this blog more than 1,200 times in the last six years, and his ideas, quotes...

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U.S. Restaurants Show Expansion Again in June

The National Restaurant Association reported today that:“Bolstered by stronger same-store sales and customer traffic levels, the National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant Performance Index (RPI) stood above 100 for the eighth consecutive month in June. The RPI – a monthly composite index that tracks the health of and outlook for the U.S. restaurant industry – stood at 101.4 in June, unchanged from May’s level (red line in chart). June represented...

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America's Energy Revolution Has Brought Lower Real Prices for Both Natural Gas and Electricity

One of the economic benefits of the shale gas revolution is the moderating effect that abundant, cheap shale gas has had on the price of electricity in the U.S. for all end-users: residential, commercial and industrial customers.  The indirect cost savings for electricity customers from cheap shale gas are in addition to the significant and direct cost savings from inflation-adjusted gas prices for residential, commercial, industrial customers...

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Creative Destruction: Acoustic Pianos, R.I.P.

From yesterday's NY Times, comes an excellent illustration of the economic concept of "creative destruction," which has been described as the "accumulation and annihilation of wealth under capitalism."  In this example, it's the acoustic piano that is literally being annihilated in many cases, as older used pianos are increasingly being discarded in dumps around the country, or even burned for firewood.  As a pianist, piano technician,...

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Obama Opposes Min. Wage Increase in Samoa Due to Harmful Effects, Will He Do the Same for U.S.?

Both of these events took place last Thursday: 1.  PAGO PAGO, American Samoa — "President Obama has signed into law legislation to freeze American Samoa's minimum wage until 2015. The president signed the bill Thursday, which delays a 50-cent increase that would have gone into effect in September.Minimum wage in American Samoa varies from $4.18 to $5.59 per hour, depending on the industry. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 provided for annual 50-cents per hour increases until the rate matched the rest of the U.S., where the minimum pay...

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Chicago Fed: Midwest Manufacturing Grew 11% Over Last Year, vs. 5.6% for U.S., and 2.2% for GDP

The Chicago Federal Reserve reported today that its Midwest Manufacturing Index increased 1.1% in June compared to May, reversing most of the revised 1.4% monthly decline in May.  On an annual basis, regional manufacturing activity in the 7th Federal Reserve district improved by 11% in June from a year ago, about twice the annual 5.6% increase in the national manufacturing component of industrial production through June (see chart above). ...

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Oilman Harold Hamm on America's Premier State - North Dakota - And Its Very Bright Shale Future

America's premier state leads the country in "shovel-ready" jobs without any stimulus taxpayer money: Oklahoma oilman Harold Hamm and his company Continental Resources have been an industry leader in: a) developing the energy-rich Bakken oil field, and b) introducing the advanced drilling technologies including hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling that have created an energy revolution here that is making the U.S. "the Saudi Arabia of oil...

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Current Intrade Odds for Republican VP

Click to enlarge.From Intrade.c...

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More Ticket Scalping = Fewer Empty Seats?

From a recent news report: "London's Metropolitan police said they had arrested 16 people since Friday for illegal reselling of Olympics tickets, as Games organizers said they were investigating why scores of seats were empty at some events yesterday."MP: Well maybe if the London police weren't arresting people and restricting ticket sales in the secondary market, perhaps there wouldn't be so many empty seats? ...

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Big Screen Energy: Fracking Film Festival in D.C.

A few weeks ago, I attended the "Big Screen Energy: Fracking Film Festival" in Washington, D.C., where trailers for three energy documentary films were featured.  Those trailers appear below, and here's a fact-filled energy brochure that was available at the event.  Get some popcorn and enjoy the shows! 1. Truthland.  What are the facts behind oil and natural gas development in America today? One woman from rural Pennsylvania decided to find out — for her family, for her community, for herself. Hear what some of the experts she interviewed...

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Wisconsin's Sand Boom Brings Jobs, Prosperity

Leader-Telegram -- "A new industry continues to rise — quite literally — from the ground in west-central Wisconsin. Officials from 12 regional counties reported the area now has a total of 52 silica sand mines that are either operating or approved (see map above).That's up 136 percent from 22 just a year ago and shows just how fast the sand storm is sweeping across west-central Wisconsin, which is home to plentiful deposits of a variety of sand...

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"I, Pencil" Updated to 2012 Version "I, Smartphone"

The "I, Smartphone" video above is a modernized 21st century version of the classic essay "I, Pencil," written in 1958 by Leonard Reed, founder of  the Foundation for Economic Education, and explained below by Milton Friedman in about 1980.  ...

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Maybe Private Sector is Doing Fine? Growth in Post Recession "Private GDP" (3%) is Above Average

 The chart above shows annualized growth rates for: a) the quarterly, non-government, private-sector components of real GDP (personal consumption expenditures, gross private domestic investment, and net exports), see blue bars in chart, and b) the quarterly component of real GDP for "government consumption expenditures and gross investment" (brown bars).First Trust Portfolios (Brian Wesbury et al.) is the only organization I know that calculates...

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Libertarian Candidate Will End War on Drugs

In his new advertisement above, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson promises to end the "War on Drugs Peaceful Americans Who Choose to Voluntarily Use Intoxicants Not Currently Approved of By the Government," and says "The fact is, marijuana users are no more criminal than our commander-in-chief. So what's up Mr. President, it's OK for you to do it, but everybody else should be arrested and go to jail?"Johnson's ad features the photo...

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Great Interactive Chart of the Summer Olympics

From The Economist, a really interesting interactive map/chart of the Summer Olympics back to 1896, here are some factoids:1. The first Summer Olympics was held in Athens, Greece in 1896, with 14 participating countries (see graphic above).2. By 1900, the number of participating countries increased to 28 for Olympiad II, hosted by Paris, France. 3. The U.S. hosted the Summer Olympics for the first time in 1904, and it was held in St. Louis. ...

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Expect Significant "Medal Inequality" at the 2012 London Olympics. Should There be a "Medal Tax"?

\table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;}.tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;} Share of Adjusted Gross Income, 2008      Share of Olympic Medals, 2008Top 5%34.73%36.22%Top 10%45.77%53.11%Top 25%67.38%71.47%Top 50%87.25%91.03%The table above shows a comparison of: a) the shares of Adjusted Gross Income for the top 5%, 10%, 25% and 50% of U.S. taxpayers in...

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Energy Fact of the Day: U.S. Crude Oil Production (ex-Alaska) Reaches a 23-Year High in June

One of the more interesting items buried in today's 213-page Monthly Energy Review from the EIA (full report here) is the fact that U.S. crude oil production for the lower 48 states is estimated to have reached a 23-year high in June of 5.74 million barrels per day (see chart above, data here).  That would be the highest monthly crude oil production in the lower 48 states since 5.76 million daily barrels of oil were produced in June of 1989. ...

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Weekly Update on the Bakken Boom, It Just Keeps Getting Better and Better All the Time

Bruce Oskol of the Million Dollar Way blog sends along these recent updates on the impressive Bakken boom:  1. Diversified energy company ONEOK (NYSE: OKE, currently trading at an all-time high of $45.21 per share, and 26% above a year ago) announced $1 billion of new investments in energy projects, including a fourth (and unplanned) 100 million cubic feet natural gas processing facility in the Bakken. This is huge. 2. Bentek Energy predicts a natural gas boom for the Bakken. Remember, the Bakken field is an oil field; the natural gas...

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Here's a Michigan Business That Did NOT Happen

President Obama: "If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen." Or in the case of 13-year old entrepreneur Nathan Duszynski in Holland, Michigan, who tried to start a business, and somebody else (government bureaucrats) made that not happen, as I reported on CD last week.  Here's a video update from Michigan's Mackinac Center for Public Policy:From the Mackinac Center: "In Holland, Mich., a 13-year-old entrepreneur thought he would be able to sell hot dogs and financially help his disabled parents...

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North Dakota: Where the Jobs and Opportunity Are

From the Twin Cities Star Tribune: "Right now you are probably asking yourself: "What would it be like to live in a place with an unemployment rate of 1 percent?" Me, too! So I went to Williston, N.D., to find out.There are certain things that journalists do as a public service because you, the noble reader, are probably not going to do them for yourself -- like attending charter revision meetings or reading the autobiography of Tim Pawlenty. Going to Williston is sort of in this category. The people are lovely, but you're talking about a...

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Move Over Bakken, Here Comes Eagle Ford Shale

The world's largest economics organization IHS Global Insight is reporting today that the Eagle Ford Shale area in South Texas will likely be an even more prolific oil-producing area than the booming oil-rich Bakken region of North Dakota: "Strong drilling results, coupled with the large prospective area, and magnitude of the resource potential, combine to make the Eagle Ford Shale play in South Texas a contender for the best tight oil play in the U.S., according to a new report from IHS, the leading global source of information and analytics.According...

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May Travel Volume +2.3%, Largest Gain Since 2009

The Federal Highway Administration (FHA) reported recently that "travel on all roads and streets" in the U.S. increased by 2.3% in May compared to May 2011.  That was the largest monthly gain in motor vehicle travel since a 2.8% increase in November 2009, two and-a-half years ago (see chart above). On a year-to-date basis, traffic volume through May this year is 1.2% higher than the same period last year.The May gain in monthly traffic volume...

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CPI for Natual Gas Falls to Nine-Year Low This Year

 The chart above displays the monthly CPI series for "Utility (piped) gas service" back to 2000 (the series equals 100 in 1983), and shows the significant benefits of the shale gas revolution for American consumers. Despite a slight uptick in June, the CPI measure of the price consumers pay for natural gas last month was the lowest since February 2003, more than nine years ago.  And compared to the peak index level four years ago in the...

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Markets in Everything: $40 Foot-Powered Washing Machine That Could Change Millions Of Lives

From Fast Company -- "About a year ago, two students from the Art Center College of Design named Alex Cabunoc and Ji A You traveled from Los Angeles to Cerro Verde, a 30,000 person slum outside of Lima, Peru. Their goal? Develop a commercial product that alleviates issues related to water poverty, targeted at people who earn between $4 and $10 a day."  Here's what they came up with:  "The GiraDora (see picture above and video demonstration...

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Energy Fact of the Day: North Dakota Oil Could Offset All Persian Gulf Imports by 2025

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — "A new study says North Dakota's oil production could jump more than threefold by 2025 to more than 2 million barrels a day. The study released Wednesday by Bentek Energy LLC of Colorado also says natural gas production could more than quintuple by 2025 in the Williston Basin. The basin includes the Dakotas and Montana."MP: If oil production in North Dakota increases to 2 million barrels per day from current daily production of 639,000 barrels, that would be more than enough domestic oil to completely offset current...

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In a Letter to Congress, Some Economists Refute the Law of Demand and Propose a 35% Increase in the Minimum Wage to Stimulate the Economy

A group of prominent economist including Robert Reich, Jeffrey Sachs, Joseph Stiglitz and Laura Tyson have sent a letter to Congressional leaders recommending a 35% increase in the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $9.80 per hour by 2014. The group identifies the following benefits from a 35% increase in the minimum wage: 1. "This policy would directly provide higher wages for close to 20 million workers by 2014. Furthermore, another nearly 9 million workers whose wages are just above the new minimum would likely see a wage increase through...

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With U.S. GDP of $15T, Many Large Metro Areas Have Larger Economies Than Entire Countries

From the WSJ:Inside the $15 trillion machine that is U.S. economy are dozens of metropolitan economies, from New York to Honolulu, that are the real pistons and gears of U.S. growth and prosperity. So how do those individual economies stack up against the world? Take the quiz below, and for answers see this chart.1. New York has the highest Gross Metropolitan Product (GMP) of any U.S. metropolitan area — $1.287 trillion. That is bigger than the GDP of all but how many countries (not including the U.S.)?a) 5b) 8c) 10d) 12 2. Houston’s GMP is...

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CEO Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar

Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, the largest online repair community, and founder of Dozuki, a software company dedicated to helping manufacturers publish amazing documentation, explains on the Harvard Business Review blog why "I Wont' Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here's Why":"I am a grammar "stickler." I have a "zero tolerance approach" to grammar mistakes that make people look stupid.Everyone who applies for a position at either of my companies, iFixit or Dozuki, takes a mandatory grammar test. If job hopefuls can't distinguish between "to"...

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Raising the Minimum Wage by 38% to $10 per Hour Would Be “Economic Malpractice”

In a recent column about the minimum wage titled “Raising the Minimum Wage is Cheap and Easy,” economist Dean Baker writes:  “There are some policies that are pretty much no-brainers.  Most recent research finds that [the minimum wage] has no impact on employment. Even the research that finds job loss shows that the effect is small, suggesting that a 20 percent increase in the minimum wage may reduce employment of young people by around 2 to 3 percent.”Unlike Baker, and contrary to his assertion that the “minimum wage is non-controversial,”...

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Evidence Mounts: U.S. Real Estate Market Has Passed Bottom and Entered a Period of Recovery

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its monthly report today on U.S. home prices in May, based on its House Price Index (HPI) for houses financed or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. According to the FHFA, home prices increased in May by 0.8% from April to an index level of 188.06, which was the highest level for home prices since August 2010 (see top chart above).  The April-May increase in the HPI was the fourth back-to-back...

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