Setting aside my esteemed co-writer's obsession with hypermiling (not practicing, mind you, joking about), there really is no such thing as a free lunch - especially when it comes to fuel economy. The Government, however, as demonstrated by recently finalized mileage laws, wants their lunch on the house.
As the saying goes, "you can't legislate innovation", and fuel economy standards give car manufacturers very interesting incentives.
Can you believe it's already been a month since we looked into the future and told you how the S&P 500 would close (read: looked at Yahoo! and told you how contracts are trading). That means I'm back here today to act as the weather vane and show you which way the market winds are blowing. To those that have asked, I posted some methodology at the end. Peruse that and ask me any questions you have!
Last we checked out one of the obscure numbers that relates to jobs in the United States, we were looking at a Employment-Population Ratio under 59%. Today let's revisit that same ratio and see how much things have changed.
It's been a while since we here at Don't Quit Your Day Job have collaborated with another site to give you some original epic pieces. Today, we rectify that by teaming up with the inimitable ADP at American Debt Project. ADP is one of the good ones - a debt blogger who is actually seeing declining debt. And isn't that the way the debt genre is supposed to work? (And almost never does?). Follow her progress as she does what so few others do.
ADP came to us with a curious question: Can we use building statistics to see when economies become overheated? Basically, she wanted to know if watching building trends and construction would provide any clues to where an economy is headed. Evidence is slim, but let's take a look at the numbers and see what we can figure out!
Spoiler alert for anyone who is still ignoring the Presidential race, Republican Mitt Romney has picked Paul Ryan (a Representative from Wisconsin) as his running mate (and President Barack Obama and Joe Biden work out some kinks). The battle has already begun as each campaign has pivoted from talking about the economy to talking about how their opponent will cut Medicare to the bone, and leave millions of seniors without health care options. If talking about Social Security and Medicare is the third rail of American politics, then the best way to describe it would be to say that the candidates are trying to push their opponents onto the track.
Sports are a funny thing, especially on an international stage. All sorts of sappy lines have been spilled about international sports - that they are a base of the global community, they foster goodwill between nations, they celebrate the world coming together. Let's cut to the chase - sports were originally a pretty solid tool to develop better, stronger, faster soldiers, at least before automation and weaponry closed the gap. Even look at the word which denotes a follower or supporter of a team - 'fan'. That word, of course, is short for 'fanatic', which describes excessive devotion to something - whether religion, politics, or yes... sports. Yes, if international sports is good for one thing - it's as a proxy for war. I'd much rather Ireland and Great Britain battled it out on a track than a battlefield. Same goes for China and the US, the ultimate rivalry of the last two games.
"Oh, I don't invest in stocks. They're too risky" said a young (urban) professional friend of mine. Five minutes later he was reconsidering that statement, and you'll be happy to know he's now the proud owner of some stock (well, at least some stock mutual funds).
Well, The Olympics are almost over and it's looking likely that the United States will take the overall medal count, and possibly the gold medal count too. There's nothing like a medal count victory on the world stage to get those patriotic fires burning...