Economics

The hurricane center is sunny and calm, but the wall around it blows fiercely with its opposing sides tearing in opposite directions.

People like concrete explanations for phenomena.  For instance, virtually daily financial headlines are filled with reasons various markets behaved the way they did that day, up or down.  These explanations are more compelling to readers than something along the lines of  “buyers were more urgent than sellers today, so markets increased after the opposite was true yesterday

Tariffs are essentially taxes imposed by a country on goods imported from abroad.  They serve multiple purposes: generating revenue for the government, protecting domestic industries from foreign competition, and sometimes as a tool in trade negotiations.  When a tariff is applied, it increases the cost of imported goods, making them less competitive against domestic products.

In recent years, America has experienced higher inflation than we've seen in a long time.

Growing positivity seems like a good idea most of the time for most people.  While the definition of what is and isn’t positive remains subjective, most would likely agree that there ought to be more of it.  According to this survey from Gallup, there was an uptick of positivity for the first

Economies are large (especially the largest in the world) which makes them difficult to measure.  Any measurements which are conducted are also subject to revisions.  These revisions bring in more complete data, helping to improve the accuracy of the measurement. 

Growing up there was a guy in the neighborhood who worked in some form of construction.  He would often come home with copper wires, the type used overhead for transmitting electricity.  I was in elementary school, so he never told me why it was in his possession, but he would strip the wire coating off with a large knife in his back yard and recycle the copper.

Have you ever had someone say to you, “I’m fine” and not really believe that was the case?  If we were in a room, you’d see my hand go up.  You can often tell by the person’s tone or look that it may not be true. 

Spending borrowed money can be fun, but paying it back rarely is. However, that is how the financial system works in America.  A person looking to spend more than they have available borrows money from another source which has more money than it needs at the same moment in time.  This can go on and help fuel an economic expansion for a while but not forever.

He wasn’t an economist or even market pundit, but the Greek philosopher Heraclitus might have made a living in the profession were he alive today.  He is known at Atlas for his pithy quote which translates roughly to, “change is the only constant in life.”