June 4, 2015 The National Low Income Housing Coalition has published a comprehensive report entitled Out of Reach 2015 describing in great detail how low wages and high rents affect people throughout the United States. California, our most populous state and a historical trendsetter, has the 3rd highest rents in … Continue reading
Category Archives: Economy
UCLA Fees 1949-1950
Source: Registrar Archive, University of California at Los Angeles Inflation conversion factor 1950-2014 = 9.8520; 2014 dollars in parentheses. Incidental fee: $39 ($384.23) Covers certain expenses of students for library books, athletic and gymnasium facilities and equipment, lockers and washrooms, registration and graduation, consultation, medical advice, dispensary treatment as can … Continue reading
The Caribbean
G-20 Infrastructure Commitment On November 16, 2014 leaders of G-20 nations in Brisbane, Australia presented a plan to boost global GDP by more than $2 trillion over five years by investing in infrastructure and increasing trade. Presumably the infrastructure they have in mind will include projects to reduce the use … Continue reading
Solar Power Economics
October 24, 2014 Here’s an example –albeit of limited scope- of how solar power could be used to reduce unemployment. An Arizona-based private company will build a 60-megawatt solar power plant on 600 acres of dry, vacant land near Mendota, California, a drought-stricken community with near 30% unemployment about 25 … Continue reading
Debt, Taxes, Banks, And Paper
…It is a wise rule and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit, and at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of its faculties, “never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant for paying the … Continue reading
Attack on Paper Money Laws
Paper money, paper money, and paper money! Is now, in several of the states, both the bubble and the iniquity of the day. That there are some bad people concerned in schemes of this kind cannot be doubted, but the far greater part are misled. People are so bewildered upon … Continue reading
Universal Value Standard For All Currencies
Little did President Richard Nixon know, as he announced on television that fateful Friday, August 13th, 1971 the unilateral cancellation of the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold, that within just two generations his own words would epitomize the root cause of the American economy’s predicament: “But … Continue reading
Trade Deficit With China
U.S.-China Trade Facts U.S. goods and private services trade with China totaled $579 billion in 2012 (latest data available). Exports totaled $141 billion; Imports totaled $439 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with China was $298 billion in 2012. China is currently our 2nd largest goods trading partner … Continue reading
The Nixon Shock
The Nixon Shock was a series of economic measures undertaken by United States President Richard Nixon in 1971, the most significant of which was the unilateral cancellation of the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold. While Nixon’s actions did not formally abolish the existing Bretton Woods system … Continue reading
The Petrodollar
Petrodollar refers to United States dollars earned through the sale of its petroleum (oil) to another country. Origin In 1971 Richard Nixon was forced to close the gold window taking the U.S. off the gold standard and setting into motion a massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar. In an effort … Continue reading