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Ironman is the alias of the blogger at Political Calculations, a site that develops, applies and presents both established and cutting edge theory to the topics of investing, business and economics. We should acknowledge that Ironman is either formerly or currently, and quite possibly, simultaneously employed as some kind of engineer, researcher, analyst, rocket scientist, editor and perhaps as a teacher of some kind or another. The scary thing is that's not even close to being a full list of Ironman's professions and we should potentially acknowledge that Ironman may or may not be one person. We'll leave it to our readers to sort out which Ironman might behind any of the posts that do appear here or comments that appear elsewhere on the web!
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Political Calculations (Dec 29, 2011)
In October 2011, China set a new record for its exports to the United States, with the value of its goods and services being imported into the U.S. reaching an all-time high... more
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Political Calculations (Dec 25, 2011)
Four years ago, the number of employed Americans peaked at 146,584,000 in November 2007, just ahead of the U.S. economy itself peaking in December 2007, which marked the... more
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Political Calculations (Dec 24, 2011)
Once upon a time, we developed a better method for detecting housing bubbles. Today, we're going back to the data mines to do some refinement and to see where things stand... more
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Political Calculations (Dec 23, 2011)
Does it pay to delay taking Social Security benefits?
Let's say you're considering one of three options: taking early retirement at Age 62, retiring at the traditional Age... more
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Political Calculations (Dec 22, 2011)
If you're an investor looking to possibly put your money into an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), how much can you expect that will that cost you?
ETFs are a lot like mutual... more
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Political Calculations (Dec 21, 2011)
If you run a business and are looking at running a marketing campaign offering discounts on your products or services through social media marketing sites like Groupon or... more
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Political Calculations (Dec 20, 2011)
Nobody can predict where stock prices will go next, can they? Especially given the volatility of stock prices, especially in today's market, where the market can swing by... more
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Political Calculations (Dec 14, 2011)
What effect do you think those much higher tax rates will have upon stock prices beginning in 2013? Especially since the long-term capital gains tax rate will be so much... more
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Political Calculations (Dec 10, 2011)
Thanks to the Fed's excursion into Zero Interest Rate Policy (aka "ZIRP"), we can't use our dedicated tool that reckons the odds of a recession up to a year in the future.... more
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Political Calculations (Dec 09, 2011)
As of the end of the U.S. federal government's 2011 fiscal year on 30 September 2011, the United States' total public debt outstanding was recorded to be approximately... more
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Political Calculations (Dec 07, 2011)
Does increasing the minimum wage increase GDP?
Bloggingstocks' Joseph Lazaro outlined the theory that it might back on 1 August 2009, shortly after the U.S. federal minimum... more
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Political Calculations (Dec 03, 2011)
What effect did the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing programs have on U.S. stock prices in the three years from November 2008, when it was first suggested, and today?... more
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Political Calculations (Dec 02, 2011)
Today's news that the number of initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits being filed for the week ending 26 November 2011 ticked back up over the 400,000 mark is... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 30, 2011)
How dependent has the United States government under President Barack Obama become upon borrowing money from foreign sources to support its spending?
Would you believe the... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 29, 2011)
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis has revised its initial estimate of GDP in the third quarter of GDP downward. We've adjusted our GDP forecast for the fourth quarter of... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 26, 2011)
It's the age old American dilemma of what to do with the remains of the bird following the Thanksgiving holiday, while not doing any more to continue sending your Body Mass... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 25, 2011)
According to Forbes, Oprah Winfrey earned approximately $290 million in 2010.
That is, quite possibly, the highest income earned by any American in 2010. Going by data from... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 23, 2011)
How can a 1.2% decline in the number of turkeys produced result in a 21.9% increase in their price?
That's the question we're tackling today as we continue to survey the... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 22, 2011)
It's time once again for Political Calculations' week-long celebration of the most American of American holidays: Thanksgiving!
But this year, we're looking over a grim... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 21, 2011)
Ronald Wirtz, writing in the September 2005 issue of Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis' The Region asked a very compelling question: "Just how effective is our expanding... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 19, 2011)
How much demand can there be for a machine that's utterly useless?
Believe it or not, more than you might ever have thought, because Brett Coulthard, the hobbyist who... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 16, 2011)
Which age group in the U.S. has the greatest amount of income inequality among its members? The choices are:
Age 15-24
Age 25-34
Age 35-44
Age 45-54
Age 55-64... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 15, 2011)
Since our last update, the S&P 500 has largely continued to move on track.
We can confirm however that investors appear to have shifted their attention to the fourth... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 14, 2011)
We just received a neat endorsement from Captain Capitalism: "You Will Visit Political Calculations"! Our favorite excerpt:
... it's one of... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 13, 2011)
The amount of real income that an average individual will earn at any point of their life can be reasonably determined from the average distribution of annual earnings by age... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 11, 2011)
Pretend for a moment that you've just been elected to public office and that you now have the power to choose whose income you're going to tax to pay for all the vital... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 10, 2011)
Environmental Economics' John Whitehead greedily sharpened his old pencil following a statement Texas governor and GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry made in New... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 09, 2011)
Let's start with some corn facts:
In 2005, the U.S. produced 42 percent of the world’s corn. Over 50 percent of the U.S. crop is produced in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska or... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 08, 2011)
In terms of jobs gained, October 2011 appeared to be the best month for young adults (Age 20-24) since the United States economy peaked before entering into recession in... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 07, 2011)
Hauser's law is one of the stranger phenomenons in economic data. It was originally proposed by Kurt Hauser, who observed back in 1993 that:
No matter what the tax rates... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 05, 2011)
We've long known that the U.S. stock market's "Dot Com Bubble" really began in April 1997 and ended in June 2003, but we've never addressed two key questions about the event:... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 04, 2011)
In 1831, the National Debt Burden per Capita, or rather the ratio of the United States' national debt per capita and GDP, multiplied by 1 billion), dropped below a value of 3... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 03, 2011)
Yesterday, in projecting where U.S. GDP will most likely be in the months ahead, we closed our post with the following comment:
Overall, the U.S. economy is continuing to... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 02, 2011)
On 3 October 2011, we offered the following forecast for where GDP in the third quarter of 2011 would be recorded:
Assuming that the deviation between our modified limo... more
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Political Calculations (Nov 01, 2011)
Halloween means many things to many people. For kids, its the opportunity to dress up and score big in the candy department. For others, its the opportunity to go out and... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 30, 2011)
We weren't going to do this again. We really weren't. But then we found the statistics that tell how likely it is that an individual will die of an alligator attack in the... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 29, 2011)
Yesterday's 3.4% gain in the S&P 500 marked the biggest gain in a month of gains. Since 3 October 2011, when the S&P closed just below 1100 at 1099.23, the S&P... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 28, 2011)
According to a CBO report, the top 1% of income earners saw a 275% increase in their inflation-adjusted, after-tax income between 1979 and 2007.
By our quick math, that... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 27, 2011)
Why is income inequality rising for U.S. families and households, but not for individual Americans?
Having now shown that there has been absolutely no significant change in... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 26, 2011)
Perhaps the most common measure of income inequality in a nation is the Gini Coefficient (aka the "Gini Ratio"), which ranks the amount of inequality there is in a country on... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 25, 2011)
Previously, we've shown that the stock market's expected dividends per share are the fundamental driver of today's stock prices. In fact, we even worked out the basic math:... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 22, 2011)
You know, we're really not sure why so many people seem to be surprised that new, seasonally-adjusted, weekly jobless claim filings persist in clocking in at levels above... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 21, 2011)
1,946,000 fewer teens and young adults between the ages of 15 and 24 were counted as having earned income of any kind between 2006 and 2010, falling from 27,360,000 in 2006... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 20, 2011)
We're continuing our visual presentation of the data inside our "How Much Does It Cost to Employ You? (2011-12 Edition)" tool today with a look at the average tax rates paid... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 18, 2011)
Earlier this year, we posted a chart that illustrated the biggest single political issue of 2010, which revealed the near-complete disconnect that has developed since 2007... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 17, 2011)
Want to see what happens when someone designs and constructs an intricate structure, where all the individual components are constrained to stay in place, and suddenly, the... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 14, 2011)
Isn't it about time that we just stopped thinking of NCAA-member universities as institutions of higher learning and started thinking of them as a massively successful... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 13, 2011)
Once upon a time, we created a tool that makes it possible to predict how high U.S. politicians will set the maximum personal income tax rate in the U.S., depending upon... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 12, 2011)
How has the expected future for the S&P 500's earnings per share changed since we last looked at them on 11 June 2011?
Back then, we attributed the stock market's... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 11, 2011)
September 2011 was the best month for U.S. jobs in 2011, as 398,000 more Americans were counted as employed than in the previous month, as the U.S. economy began to pick up... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 08, 2011)
Previously, we investigated why small businesses haven't been creating jobs during the so-called economic recovery following the recession that began in December 2007. We... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 07, 2011)
When we last looked at seasonally-adjusted initial unemployment insurance claims (aka "new jobless benefit filings") at the end of August 2011, we found that the average rate... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 06, 2011)
Occasionally in our projects, we come across data that's simply cool in and of itself. Today, we'll look at the history of the baby boom generation in the U.S. workforce, in... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 05, 2011)
How many people are employed by small business in the United States? Or for that matter, how many people are employed at big businesses in the U.S.?
These are seemingly... more
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Political Calculations (Oct 04, 2011)
The strongest force affecting future GDP is inertia.
At least, it is if you go by our "modified limo" approach to forecasting future GDP.
Here, we took a forecasting... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 30, 2011)
What if you were in charge of reforming the U.S. individual income tax? Would you consider ditching today's excessively complex tax code in favor of something much, much... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 29, 2011)
According to Snopes, Willie Sutton was famous for two things, one of which wasn't true:
Sutton is famous for two things: His fascinating career as an illegal withdrawals... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 28, 2011)
We've got good news, bad news and really bad news for you this morning, White House Staffer! The good news is that for the first time in months, the average national price of... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 27, 2011)
You may have noticed that stock prices have been flailing around quite a lot lately:
What we can tell you is that investors have been reacting to quite a lot of noise in... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 24, 2011)
Are you dieting and/or exercising to lose weight right now? And how much weight do you expect to be able to lose and keep off by following your weight loss plan?
You've... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 23, 2011)
How much does the top income tax rate affect how much money the government collects each year?
That question is relevant today because of the President's latest idea: the... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 22, 2011)
What's the biggest single factor that determines how much money the U.S. federal government will collect in any given year?
For our money, it's Median Household Income. The... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 21, 2011)
What tax deductions do the rich and famous, as well as all other Americans who earn more than $200,000 per year, claim on their U.S. tax returns, and how much do they claim... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 20, 2011)
How much can typical Americans actually afford for the U.S. federal government to spend? And how does that compare with the amount of money that President Obama would really... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 16, 2011)
On Valentine's Day 2011, we explored the correlation that appears to exist between what motor gasoline prices are today and what the unemployment rate will be two years from... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 15, 2011)
In 2010, the median household income in the United States was $49,445, which was down from the $49,777 that had been recorded in 2009.
Meanwhile, average household income... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 14, 2011)
According to data just released by the U.S. Census this morning, in 2010, the median income earned by an individual American was $26,197, or rather, 50% of Americans earned... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 13, 2011)
On Wednesday, 8 September 2011, the fog obscuring our view of the future suddenly lifted and we could finally see what lies in store for the U.S. economy all the way to the... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 09, 2011)
Small businesses drive the growth of the U.S. job market.
So with today's unemployment rate over nine percent, which the White House anticipates will be the case well into... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 08, 2011)
California was just in the news for a really bad reason: the state is facing a historically low level of employment:
Research by the California Budget Project,... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 07, 2011)
The big news headline from the latest employment situation report from Washington D.C. was that there were zero net jobs generated in the month of August 2011 in the U.S.... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 06, 2011)
Below is the the picture we've been looking at since the S&P 500's dividend futures for 6 September 2011 were released late on Friday, 2 September 2011.
To answer... more
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Political Calculations (Sep 05, 2011)
So just how much is President Obama underwater today? Believe it or not, we're referring to the value of the President's residence in Chicago and not to the President's... more
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Political Calculations (Aug 31, 2011)
An interactive version of the chart along with the source data are available for you to knock about with as well!The interactive version will also allow you to tap the... more
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Political Calculations (Aug 30, 2011)
If you had to guess, what adjusted gross income range would you say had the biggest gains in the number of households included within that range during the years from 1996... more
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Political Calculations (Aug 29, 2011)
Once upon a time, we found that stock prices are a contemporary indicator of the state of the U.S. economy, meaning that instead of telling us what's going to happen in the... more