A swine flu epidemic is the last thing the economy needs. Even if it gets stopped and doesn’t spread, it’s already wreaked some havoc on the world of finance.
Crude oil has dropped roughly three percent in light of the recent swine flu news. Worries over less travel have begun to unravel the commodity’s twelve percent increase this year in just a couple of days.
The global economy is forecasted, according to the International Monetary Fund, to shrink by 1.3% despite a 0.5% prediction to grow earlier this year.
The U.S. dollar has grown in strength, appreciating 1.6% against the Euro from last week (at $1.3036). Continued fears over the economy shrinking will persist in driving the dollar up. One must also keep in mind the World Heath Organization has upgraded the swine flu pandemic alert to phase four, which represents sustained human to human transition, out of six. What then?
Freakonomics blogged about how Texan Timothy Dale Edwards (profession: hobo) is using a website called PimpThisBum.com to attract more donations to his collection efforts. The key reason why he’s using a website in particular to get donations? Two words: credit cards.
Why are credit cards so important? Well, according to consumer psychology studies, we’re more likely to part with money if it’s done through credit cards – an “invisible” transaction, so to speak – as opposed to cash, where the money is literally leaving our hands. This lower psychological impact drives up our willingness to give more to a hobo.
A thought for the bums of Penn (and I’m not referring to some of the guys who go here…kidding!): find some generous web designer who will make a website for you to get better financial results than traditional can-shaking in front of Mickey D’s.
“Role-play will be a lot less pleasurable. We have split the world into two pantomimic parts: the evil (the bankers) and the good (everyone else). In future, sorting out villains and victims will require more imagination.”
“We sometimes emphasize the danger in a crisis without focusing on the opportunities that are there. We should feel a great sense of urgency because it is the most dangerous crisis we have ever faced, by far. But it also provides us with opportunities to do a lot of things we ought to be doing for other reasons anyway. And to solve this crisis we can develop a shared sense of moral purpose.”
Al Gore, 45th U.S. Vice President & Environmental Activist
Because tax season is over for the majority of Americans, “Ask the Taxpert” is now on hiatus…but never fear! For the addicts seeking their weekly dose of tax-goodness, my favorite tax quote from the University’s esteemed founder:
“Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.”
What's the world coming to when you can't rely on speculation and rumor?
I don’t know what world The Wall Street Journal is living in (perhaps you can find a dimension or universe that I can’t) but the economy is well on it’s way to recovery. In a recent article, the WSJ laments the performance and over valuation of Bank of America Corp. Shouldn’t the fact that stocks are being inflated again be a sign of recovery?
The way I see it, if people are confident enough to jump onto Wall Street with no idea of what they’re really doing—as most do, kind of like the California Gold Rush—in search of high yield profits, then the economy is once again performing the way it should be. Stock speculation is a time-honored tradition. Yes, it comes with dangers. Hell, Mark Twain wrote, “October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.”
The problem with this vice however, as with any vice, is that oftentimes, the gains outweigh the drawbacks, if only for a certain period of time. For once though, it is the other way around. Read more…
In honor of Fling weekend, when I know levels of readership are so low that it’s only second to Spring Break, here is a lighthearted but real post on rising beer prices.
Many places around the world and some states in the U.S. have been considering hiking up excise taxes on beer and/or alcohol. An excise tax is a euphemism for a sales tax on specific items, often ones that the government would rather see you not partake in, such as alcohol and cigarettes.
This means that when you buy beer in one of these places, the price that you pay for the whole shebang just got higher, which leaves you, the student in want of beer, poorer.
Roll call of some places where beer just got more expensive or may get more expensive pending future legislation after the jump.
As a graduating senior, I’ve been endlessly hounded to “donate to the Penn Fund!” since the fall. The University as a whole has also been in the midst of a highly-publicized $3.5 billion capital campaign, which has been doing well, despite the economic conditions a majority of Penn alums are currently facing.
University funding is indeed a strange animal in economics. To paraphrase then-Lehigh University president, and former Penn Engineering dean, Gregory Farrington in his presentation to my Governor’s School class, “We call up our alumni and ask them for money, and they give it to us without expecting anything in return! No other for-profit business organization has this kind of economic model.” Granted, the alumni get a tax deduction for the amount they donate, but generally, the only thing donors get is that warm and fuzzy altruistic feeling that comes from “doing a good deed.” However, this feeling hardly puts food on the table or pays the bills. Read more…
One of the best 
As a graduating senior, I’ve been endlessly hounded to “
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