Common Cents Blog
Common Cents Blog
The Highs (Interest Rates and Debt), the Lows (Unemployment) and What It Means for the Rest of Us
Today is Cinco de Mayo. While many Americans think this is Mexico’s Independence Day, it is actually a somewhat secondary holiday south of the border. By just about all accounts, it is more popular in the…
This past week, some of us took a personality test here at the office. My answers to the questions scored out as an ENFP-A, or an ‘Active Campaigner.’ According to the website, one of the bigger…
For many years, I have maintained that our nation’s greater problems are societal in nature, not necessarily economic. While the two are inexorably connected, we measure economic activity with calculations, equations, assumptions and estimates. After all,…
This week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new guidelines for tailpipe emissions. For all intents and purposes, the changes will effectively kill gas and diesel engines in the United States. Not surprisingly, this was the…
This past Tuesday, I made an early morning economic presentation to a group in Knoxville, Tennessee. I followed the mayor of Knoxville, Glenn Jacobs, who used to be the WWE professional wrestler Kane. Jacobs, a massive…
This past week, I made a presentation on the economy at a conference in New Orleans. Say what you will about the place, but people love to go to NOLA and have a good time. There…
My mother is the most pragmatic person I have ever met, or will likely ever meet. She doesn’t suffer fools and is not given to flights of fancy. Perhaps for this reason, she basically just went…
TGIF. I used to think the expression “Thank God it’s Friday” was a bit sophomoric. Is your job really that bad? Are your plans for the weekend really that good? Is that all you have to…
Here we go again, building walls of worry. To be sure, the news makes it pretty easy for us to do. Nothing seems to be hitting on all cylinders, does it? However, this past week took…
This morning I had a meeting at a coffee shop in Mountain Brook Village here in the Birmingham area. I have lived in this particular suburb for most of my life. As I was waiting, I…