— WILLIAM EVANS, Notre Dame economist whose research shows people are more likely to die in the days after receiving a paycheck [via Freakonomics]
When was consumerism, in the modern sense, born? Researchers say it was at least a century before the Industrial Revolution brought cheap, mass-produced goods to the world. Hoarding, and the popularity of storage units, came a bit later.
“When sex is dirt cheap, we’re much more likely to go at it like rabbits. Couple O has been together for 15 years and has a great sex life. They keep it affordable. If they’re tired, they make it quick. Maybe they don’t even bother to take their shirts off.”
Plenty of rappers talk about money. But the lyricists in these videos really rap about money—not pimpin’ or drug deals, but international currency policy, bank bailouts, taxes, tithing, and other aspects of the gangsta economist lifestyle. They also make videos that feature Christians dancing like MC Hammer and the New Kids on the Block, or [...]
“Inflation helps debtors and spenders at the expense of creditors and savers.”
Economists tell us that the Great Recession ended last summer. One complication: Many people—President Obama included—are acting like we’re still in the midst of a recession. One more complication: A committee of economists now says that the recession that ended last summer may not have ended after all.
Back in 2007, everybody seemed willing to believe the housing market, stock market, and economy as a whole would keep humming along uninterrupted for, well, forever. Now, few people seem to believe that the recession is over—even though it supposedly ended last summer.
Among the data that may give some indication of how the economy is doing: Sales of generic toilet paper and cheap liquor, how new your underwear is, and how hot your waitress is, and how busy the fast-food drive-thru is at breakfast time. Also: passenger subway traffic near San Francisco’s Union Square, and perhaps even [...]
For most of 2009, the number of part-time jobs increased—part-timers being cheaper alternatives to full-time workers, whose jobs had been axed in recession-time cost-cutting moves. But since July, there’s been a drop-off in part-time gigs as well. July happens to be when the federal minimum wage was raised from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour.
Are we heading for a boom time? A slow slog? Another recession? A ’90s-Japan-like lost decade? A full-on depression? The experts have weighed in, as they’re apt to do.
Chances are, if you’ve spent your life studying how money and economics work, or if you’ve been fairly successful at actually making money and compiling it in a bank account, you’re a cheapskate when it comes to food, wine, cars, homes, clothes, and nearly everything else.
