Category: Finance

To be in the top one percent of earners in the United States, an individual must make a gross income of $421,926. That is quite the sum, and an individual mired down in the lower quintiles will of course feel some degree of envy at the lifestyle of such persons. But this is a rather […]

Social Security recipients get a raise in 2019, and it’s their biggest in years. The 22 million beneficiaries — 15 million of them retired workers — will see a 2.8 percent cost-of-living (COLA) bump in the year ahead. The COLA is based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Workers and Clerical Workers. This […]

The US Treasury yield curve — the graphical representation of the relationship between bond maturities and their yields — is flattening. Some maturities, such as yields on two to five-year bonds, has already inverted. An inversion of the two and the ten-year maturities, recognized in the financial world as a warning sign of coming recession, […]

The Congressional Budget Office released a new report recently that indicated that America’s forthcoming air-superiority fighter, currently known only as the Penetrating Counter Air (PCA) program, could cost as much as $300 million per air frame. As a result, headlines painting the program as yet another example of rampant and unchecked government spending have flooded […]

No one can predict with certainty what the U.S. economy will do in 2019, but the days of the roaring bull market in stocks may be nearing its end. Many experts predict a global slowing in the year ahead, which would, of course, impact the U.S. Is there a safe haven for your money in the […]

The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) announced a new plan earlier this week to combat the current coffee price crisis, which has resulted in the commodity losing nearly half of its value in the last four years. The SCA’s plan — called the Coffee Price Crisis Response Initiative — is to devote a significant amount of […]

Cryptocurrency investors are continuing to get hammered with unsettling news. Bitcoin is currently trading at just $3,449.32, down about 80 percent from its high last year, according to Forbes. As the coin continues its downward spiral, crypto whale Mike Novogratz told Bloomberg that the initial coin offering market is “dead.” “The ICO market is pretty […]

Farmers across the United States are beginning to worry about their future in the wake of a recent report from the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), which claims that impending climate change may render some fertile lands useless. According to the report, “The impacts of climate change are already being felt in communities across […]

US-based telecommunications firm Verizon announced on Monday that more than 10,000 employees would be accepting a buyout offer and leave the company over the next six months. The planned buyouts are part of the company’s reorganization plan to streamline its workforce and capitalize on the new 5G network once it goes live. The affected employees […]

Part two can be read here. Furthermore, high corporate tax rates are negatively correlated with economic growth. That is to say, higher corporate tax rates, ceteris paribus, are negatively correlated with economic growth.  The leading empirical research in the area of growth and corporate taxation estimates that cutting U.S. corporate taxes by 10 percentage points […]

The Japanese government is planning on pumping more than $240 billion over the next five years into the country’s military. Much of the budget is expected to be spent in the United States on US-manufactured equipment and vehicles. This move not only strengthens Japan’s position in the Pacific, but also helps keep the US satisfied […]

In December of last year, Congress passed, and President Trump signed, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). The legislation, among other things, cut the top marginal rate of the corporate income tax from 35% to 21%. This was a huge step forward in making USA competitive on the world stage. But it did not […]