As Amazon.com stock flirts with $1,000 a share*, here are some thoughts to ponder from the Wall Street Journal (editorial page May 19, 2017): Amazon marks 20 years as a public company this week, and if you got in on the ground floor you have a lot to celebrate. A $100 [continue reading . . . ]
Buried in yesterday’s knockout earnings report from Amazon.com is detail that will further encourage Amazon bulls but disappoint anyone trying to get a job at the Everything Store. In the quarter to the end of March, Amazon added a mere 9,600 to its army of full- and part-time employees, for [continue reading . . . ]
Don’t miss the excellent piece on the importance of immigrants to Silicon Valley in the New York Times February 9, 2017. Some highlights: “Silicon Valley is unlikely, as a phenomenon — it is not the default state of the world,” said John Collison, an immigrant from Ireland who is a [continue reading . . . ]
When it comes to median household income, tech powerhouses, especially in California, and suburbs of Washington, D.C., tend to dominate the top lists. Among cities with more than 65,000 population, Palo Alto ranked No. 1 in 2015 (latest data) at almost $148,000. Half of households in Palo Alto had higher income [continue reading . . . ]
It’s winter outside — cold, snowy, wet. But when it comes to the economy, especially as measured by employment growth, there’s a heat wave on the West Coast (aka the Left Coast). Washington and Oregon, in particular, are mucho caliente. Employment in the services-providing sectors grew faster in the Evergreen [continue reading . . . ]
I can think of no more fascinating global political subject these days than China. So many things make it extraordinary. For starters, China’s one-child policy means that China will grow old before it grows rich. Cheap labor made China the world’s “manu-factory”. But the shrinkage of China’s working-age population has [continue reading . . . ]
The global economy is likely to grow at between 3% and 4% in 2017 adjusted for inflation and differences in exchange rates. Emerging economies, led by Asia, are likely again to outgrow advanced economies (the U.S., Europe, Japan). That’s the word from one of the world’s most respected and widely followed [continue reading . . . ]
Dietary supplements: I’ve got a cupboard full of them. I take several every day, even though I know that under federal law, they are almost entirely unregulated. Vitamins B, C, D, E, plus magnesium, calcium, CoQ10, you name it, I’ve got it and take it. No surprise, then, that a [continue reading . . . ]
Believing that the relationship between the United States and China, with the two largest economies in the world, is the globe’s most important bi-lateral relationship, I read everything that I can get my hands in the popular press* about China. One of my favorite writers is the Wall Street Journal’s [continue reading . . . ]
From a review of The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth’s Newest Age (David Biello) by Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal Nov. 17, 2016: [T]he book leans toward the notion that the solution to our environmental challenges will come from technology, and in that sense [continue reading . . . ]
What The Donald’s apparent long-time avoidance of paying federal income tax or even much in the way of federal payroll taxes teaches us about the U.S. tax system, according to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden (D), as quoted in The New York Times Nov. 4: You work a shift in a [continue reading . . . ]
Terrific perspective on China’s growing importance, the coming fight in Congress over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the standing of the United States in a changed world in an op-ed in today’s New York Times by Clyde Prestowitz, founder and president of the Economic Strategy Institute. He delivers his punch [continue reading . . . ]