Economy
Comparison of Obesity Rates Among OECD Countries
Healthcare costs continue to rise in OECD countries. In the United States especially it has increased for many years outpacing inflation. According to the OECD, the US per capita health spending in 2009 was $7,960 which is two and half times that of the OECD average. One of the reasons for the high cost of [...]
Privatization Can Stimulate Economic Growth in Europe
Most European equity markets have performed very poorly year-to-date this year due to the sovereign debt crisis. While policy makers and regulators have proposed various types of measures to solve the crisis almost none have discussed the privatization of remaining state-owned enterprises in order to generate more revenue and stimulate economic growth. In a recent [...]
Stock Trading Volume in U.S. Remains High
I wrote an article last year discussing about the fall in stock holding periods globally. In this post lets take a review how equity and option trading volumes in the U.S. have soared over the years. The financial services industry is one of the major components of the US economy. While in the past manufacturing [...]
The Role of US and UK Central Banks in Creating Housing Bubbles and Rising Income Inequality
The US and UK Central Banks were complicit in inflating the housing bubble by keeping the interest rates too low for a long time. While this theory has been discussed by many, Albert Edwards of Société Générale takes a different angle on why the Central Bankers kept encouraging the housing bubble. A post in FT Alphaville [...]
Which Countries Have the Highest Subsidies for Fossil Fuels?
Most developing and resource-rich countries offer high subsidies for fossil-fuel consumption. Subsidies for oil, natural gas, electricity and coal vary among countries depending on the natural resources present in the respective country in addition to other factors. In the developed world, subsidies for oil is mostly non-existent despite some of the countries blessed with large [...]
The Global Wealth Pyramid
The world population crossed the 7 billion mark this year. The majority of this population lives in the developing world. According to The Global Wealth Report published last by Credit Suisse last year, about 92% of the world’s population can be classified as part of the middle, the upper middle and the lower classes. The [...]
