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Inventions in Everything: Soup Bowl Attraction

By Political Calculations (May 20, 2013)

For a lot of U.S. families, there are only a handful of weeks left before their kids' school lets out for the year and they can finally get started on the serious... more

The S&P 500 Snaps into Focus

By Political Calculations (May 19, 2013)

And then, suddenly, the future for the S&P 500 snapped into clear focus. It would appear that investors have shifted their forward-looking focus to 2014-Q1 in... more

Austerity Done Wrong

By Political Calculations (May 18, 2013)

Late in 2011, after realizing that Spain had run up an exceptionally large budget deficit for the year, exceeding 8.5% of the nation's entire GDP, the newly... more

Definition of Insanity: Raising Tax Rates and Expecting a Higher Result

By Political Calculations (May 17, 2013)

In 2012, after Spain's government had run up an extraordinary budget deficit in the previous year, the newly elected government of Spain's new prime minister,... more

When Should You Sell Your Stocks?

By Political Calculations (May 15, 2013)

When should you sell your stocks? We asked that specific question several weeks ago, before we exploited the fractal nature of stock prices in developing an... more

A Big Week for the S&P 500

By Political Calculations (May 14, 2013)

Going into this week, we're not much closer to knowing for sure if the stock market's climb from its last notable trough on 18 April 2013 is the result of... more

America's Teen-Free Job Recovery

By Political Calculations (May 13, 2013)

What would the U.S. unemployment rate be today if teens were part of the economic recovery? In October 2009, the official U.S. unemployment rate peaked at 10.0% as the... more

Playing the S&P 500's Wild Cards

By Political Calculations (May 12, 2013)

Over the past several weeks, we've identified three potential wild cards that could affect stock prices in a positive way in the margin of our favorite... more

After Cliff, Dividends Consistent with Recession

By Political Calculations (May 10, 2013)

As expected, following the end of a record-breaking four-month long period in which publicly-traded U.S. companies incented by the fiscal cliff crisis set all-time records... more

The Second U.S. Housing Bubble Continues to Inflate

By Political Calculations (May 06, 2013)

After we had first announced that a new housing bubble had taken root in the U.S. economy beginning in July 2012, we soon followed up with additional analysis that... more

A Preliminary Forecast for 2013-Q2's GDP

By Political Calculations (May 05, 2013)

As expected, the first estimate of GDP for the first quarter of 2013 came in above the midpoint of our target forecast range, with the Bureau of Economic Analysis... more

The Myth of Michelle Obama's "Food Desert"

By Political Calculations (May 02, 2013)

Science is a wonderful tool for understanding how our world really works. But if the science supporting a given understanding is flawed, or worse, if it is slanted in... more

A Closer Look at a Weird Day in the Markets

By Political Calculations (Apr 28, 2013)

What a weird day for the stock market last Tuesday. And the weirdness started early. Pragamatic Capitalism's Cullen Roche sets the scene: Here’s a... more

Is the Rally for the S&P 500 Really Over?

By Political Calculations (Apr 27, 2013)

Last Friday, we declared that order had indeed broken down for the S&P 500, marking the end of the most recent rally for the U.S. stock market. But is the... more

Who Really Isn't Paying Their Fair Share of Income Taxes?

By Political Calculations (Apr 22, 2013)

With the U.S.' deadline for filing income tax returns for 2012 come and gone, we thought it might be interesting to find out which Americans aren't really... more

On the Verge of a Breakdown in Order

By Political Calculations (Apr 21, 2013)

After having a bad day on 15 April 2013, the stock market had a good day on 16 April 2013, as everything looked up. Wall St. Cheat Sheet's John Nyaradi captured... more

New U.S. Housing Bubble Sparks Import Surge from China

By Political Calculations (Apr 15, 2013)

From all appearances, the U.S. economy is now performing much more strongly than China's economy. Going by the growth rate of the value of trade between the... more

Events Driving Unemployment, Housing

By Political Calculations (Apr 14, 2013)

28 weeks ago, on 23 September 2012, a new trend in the seasonally-adjusted number of new jobless claims filed each week began. That trend has been characterized by extreme... more

The Current Microtrend in the S&P 500

By Political Calculations (Apr 13, 2013)

Today, we're following up our exploration of the fractal nature of the S&P 500 with an updated version of what we'll describe as the current micro-rally in the... more

Taking the Over for GDP in 2013Q1

By Political Calculations (Apr 08, 2013)

A little over three months ago, we predicted that GDP for the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2012 would be finally recorded below a value of $13,726.5 billion in terms... more

Record-Breaking Numbers of Dividend Increases and Decreases

By Political Calculations (Apr 07, 2013)

According to Standard & Poor [Excel Spreadsheet], in March 2013, 73 publicly-traded companies in the U.S. acted to cut their dividends, the most since the all-time... more

Going Fractal with the S&P 500

By Political Calculations (Apr 06, 2013)

When should you sell your stocks? Not long ago, we indicated that a 150 point decline in the value of the S&P 500 would be a "clear sell signal" for... more

Zooming in on the Future of the S&P 500

By Political Calculations (Apr 03, 2013)

In playing our "what if" game with the S&P 500 last week, we announced that the chart we featured would be "the last updated version of this chart... more

Bubbles and Fire Part 3

By Political Calculations (Apr 01, 2013)

It's easy to forget that it takes three components to make a fire: fuel, oxidizer and a spark. Typically, you only see two of the fire-making components coming... more

Bubbles and Fire Part 2

By Political Calculations (Mar 31, 2013)

Now that we've addressed the combination of factors that sparked off the first U.S. housing bubble back in November 2001, we're going to turn our attention... more

Bubbles and Fire

By Political Calculations (Mar 30, 2013)

As all fans of the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters know, it takes three things to make a fire: fuel, oxidizer and a spark. If you combine these three things in the... more

The National Average Minimum Wage

By Political Calculations (Mar 25, 2013)

Not long ago, we featured a pretty cool looking chart illustrating the many minimum wages that have applied at the federal and for various states in the U.S. since 1994.... more

The U.S. Housing Bubble Is Back

By Political Calculations (Mar 24, 2013)

Has the U.S. housing bubble begun to reinflate? In the past several months, there has been a lot of speculation to that effect, but so far, no one other than David... more

In Which We Explain How Cuts in R&D Spending Can Affect GDP to President Obama

By Political Calculations (Mar 18, 2013)

On Monday, 11 March 2013, President Obama[1] secretly asked us to explain the dynamics of how cuts in R&D spending might affect the nation's economic... more

The U.S. Employment Situation, Economy, QE and Stock Prices in Context

By Political Calculations (Mar 17, 2013)

In February 2013, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that some 143,492,000 Americans were counted as having jobs, as the official unemployment rate for the... more

The Essential Flatness of New Jobless Claims

By Political Calculations (Mar 04, 2013)

This may begin to change as early as later this morning, but considering that U.S. FICA payroll taxes were increased by 2% at the beginning of 2013, thereby reducing most... more

The Deadweight Loss of Minimum Wage Hikes

By Political Calculations (Mar 03, 2013)

Has boosting the U.S. minimum wage from $4.25 per hour in 1994 to today's $7.25 per hour helped or hurt the U.S. economy? To answer this question, we'll... more

The Rejection of America's Volunteer Military

By Political Calculations (Feb 25, 2013)

Today, we're revisiting the topic of the ages of those who served in the U.S. armed forces during World War 2, because we have new information to add to... more

Pro-American Vs. Anti-American at the U.S. Box Office

By Political Calculations (Feb 24, 2013)

It's not often that we can measure something like pro or anti-American political bias in American movies, but we can today because of a unique experiment conducted by... more

Winter 2013 Snapshot of Expected Future S&P 500 Earnings

By Political Calculations (Feb 19, 2013)

Starting last year, we began taking snapshots of Standard & Poor's forecasts for where the S&P 500's trailing twelve month earnings per share would be in the... more

Quarterly Data for the S&P 500, Since 1871

By Political Calculations (Feb 18, 2013)

Did you know that there isn't anywhere on the web where you can go and get quarterly data for the S&P 500 before 1988? It's true, or at least it was true, until... more

How Many Pages Long Is the U.S. Income Tax Code in 2013?

By Political Calculations (Feb 17, 2013)

According to the CCH Standard Federal Tax Reporter, as of 2013, it now takes 73,954 regular 8-1/2" x 11" sheets of paper to explain the complexity of the... more

Teens, Young Adults and President Obama's Minimum Wage

By Political Calculations (Feb 16, 2013)

What effect might President Obama's 2013 State of the Union address proposal to increase the U.S. federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $9.00 per hour have... more

China Surpasses U.S. in International Trade

By Political Calculations (Feb 13, 2013)

In 2012, China became the world's biggest trading nation, with the total value of that nation's exports and imports surpassing those of the United States.... more

Dividends and Stock Prices: Don't Say We Didn't Warn You

By Political Calculations (Feb 12, 2013)

We're returning to the cutting edge of the physics that describes how stock prices behave today, as we look backwards and forwards in time to sort out why the U.S.... more

Stagnation Dominates U.S. Employment Situation

By Political Calculations (Feb 11, 2013)

According to the January 2013 Employment Situation Report, the U.S. economy added just 17,000 jobs for individuals Age 16 or older in the month from December 2012 to... more

The 100th Anniversary of U.S. Income Taxes

By Political Calculations (Feb 10, 2013)

This week marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 16th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which made it legal for the U.S. federal government to impose taxes... more

The Danger of Leveraging Returns

By Political Calculations (Feb 08, 2013)

Barry Ritholtz' points to an outstanding post by Chris Arnade at Scientific American, with the irresistible title "The Real, and Simple, Equation that Killed... more

Dividends, Recessions and Records

By Political Calculations (Feb 05, 2013)

After spiking to a level higher than those recorded during the so-called "Great Recession" in the month of December 2012 in response to President Barack Obama's... more

New Jobless Claims: Totally Expected and What to Expect Next

By Political Calculations (Feb 04, 2013)

As we expected, the number of new jobless benefit claims jumped from the low level reported in the previous week. Let's show where things stand now, then get to some analysis... more

The Rally in Stock Prices

By Political Calculations (Jan 28, 2013)

Craig Newmark points to some interesting analysis that suggests that the recent run-up in U.S. stock prices can be attributed to the newest rounds of quantitative easing:... more

Visualizing the 2012 Distribution of Income in the U.S. by Age

By Political Calculations (Jan 27, 2013)

Where do you fit in the 2012 ranking of total money income by age group in the United States? While we've previously built a tool where you can find out your percentile... more

Dip for New Jobless Claims Likely Temporary

By Political Calculations (Jan 25, 2013)

Since 23 September 2012, the weekly data for seasonally-adjusted new jobless claims has been especially volatile. The data reported last week, which applies for the week... more

How Long Do You Have Left to Live at Age 65?

By Political Calculations (Jan 24, 2013)

We have a project we're working on behind the scenes here at Political Calculations, where we keep having to work backward in time to figure out when an average American... more

What Is Really Behind the Rally in Stock Prices

By Political Calculations (Jan 22, 2013)

Craig Newmark points to some interesting analysis that suggests that the recent run-up in U.S. stock prices can be attributed to the newest rounds of quantitative easing:... more

Who Really Owns the U.S. National Debt?

By Political Calculations (Jan 21, 2013)

Today, we're taking a preliminary look at just who owns all the debt issued by the U.S. federal government through 30 September 2012 - the end of the U.S. government's... more

Taking the Under on GDP

By Political Calculations (Jan 20, 2013)

As we expected, economic growth in the third quarter of 2012 was revised upward twice before being finalized at the end of December 2012, rising from the originally... more

Your Paycheck in 2013: Part 3

By Political Calculations (Jan 14, 2013)

Dealing with Washington D.C. is a lot like The Godfather, Part III:   As expected, the IRS scrambled on 3 January 2013 to supersede and replace the withholding... more

Jobs Stall Out in 2012-Q4

By Political Calculations (Jan 13, 2013)

According to the December 2012 employment situation report, job growth stalled out in the final three months of 2012, as the number of employed Americans (143,305,000) was... more

U.S. vs Canada: Assault Edition (Part 2)

By Political Calculations (Jan 12, 2013)

Over the holidays, we updated and corrected our original analysis of the rate of assaults in both the United States and Canada. It turns out that one of our original charts... more

U.S. Dividends Shatter Records

By Political Calculations (Jan 09, 2013)

Prompted by the desire to avoid higher taxes on dividends as part of President Obama's desired tax hikes on investment income in 2013, a record number of U.S. companies... more

Eleven Minutes and 2.3 Miles Away Equals 26 Dead

By Political Calculations (Jan 06, 2013)

Following NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre's call for placing trained armed guards in each of the nation's public schools, gun control advocates went on the attack and refused... more

Your Paycheck in 2013: Part 2

By Political Calculations (Jan 05, 2013)

Ready for Take 2 on how much of your paycheck you will be allowed to take home in 2013? Here's the deal. Late on 31 December 2012, the IRS kicked out an advance release of... more

U.S. Markets Long Since Over the Fiscal Cliff

By Political Calculations (Jan 03, 2013)

On Sunday, December 30 2012, President Barack Obama claimed that financial markets would be negatively affected by the failure of the U.S. Congress and his administration to... more

Your Paycheck in 2013: Part 1

By Political Calculations (Jan 02, 2013)

How much money will Uncle Sam allow you to keep from your paycheck in 2013 in the form of federal income taxes? Thanks to the so-called "fiscal cliff" standoff in... more