Category: Economics

Reading Time: < 1 minute If you want to know what may happen tomorrow, watch what leaders invest in today. Specifically, careful consideration of the M&A market will shed light on what trends C-Level execs believe will yield the greatest opportunities in the years ahead.  “Business deals are both a lagging and a leading indicator

Reading Time: < 1 minute Higher education has historically been viewed by many as a place of occupational safety characterized by tenure, solid endowments and the absence of the make or break competition that characterizes the business world.  Rarely have institutions of higher education failed.  Until now. Fifty-five high quality, private colleges have closed down and

Reading Time: < 1 minute It’s Not 2008  (Yet): More market turbulence and some weakening economic indicators are causing many to assume a recession is around the corner.  Economist Brian Wesbury thinks otherwise and revisits some earlier downturns for some perspective which leads him to conclude it’s “This Is Not 2008”. Omens and Portents: Various metrics such as the yield

Reading Time: 3 minutes The “Swiss Army Knife” of Health Mattress companies tell us that since we spend up to one-third of our lives sleeping, a mattress purchase is one of the most important investments we can make.  After you watch this 19 minute TED Talk on sleep, you’ll not only take the selection

Reading Time: 2 minutes Black Swans…or Gray Rhinos? In recent years we’ve heard the term “Black Swans”  to describe events like the 2008 real estate crisis:  events that are supposedly not foreseeable.  Policy strategist Michele Wucker’s TED Talk  “urges us to replace the myth of the ‘black swan’ — that rare, unforeseeable, unavoidable catastrophe — with the

Reading Time: 3 minutes “There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought”  Laurence J. Peter Author, “The Peter Principle” ——————————————————— Required Reading-The Death of Retirement During the Great Recession of 2008, many people were afraid of going broke.  Now at the height of one of the

Reading Time: 2 minutes “To build the next generation of companies, we must abandon the dogmas created after the crash. That doesn’t mean the opposite ideas are automatically true: you can’t escape the madness of crowds by dogmatically rejecting them. “Instead ask yourself: how much of what you know about business is shaped by

Reading Time: 2 minutes How to “Heimlich” Yourself The Heimlich maneuver has saved thousands from choking.  Unfortunately, we often “choke” on more than just food.  It’s the rare individual who hasn’t “choked” at a critical moment due to fear, anxiety or some other emotion. There usually isn’t someone around in such situations willing or able

Reading Time: 2 minutes “We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.” Helen Keller 1880-1968 The Useless Class  The introduction of machinery into agriculture in the 1800s freed millions from the farm to flock to the cities where, fortunately, an industrial revolution was also occurring

Reading Time: < 1 minute A Solid Finish: The government shut down has also stopped the flow of data from Washington that economists rely upon for analysis and forecasting, but that hasn’t stopped Dr. Brian Wesbury from offering his best estimate of fourth quarter 2018 GDP growth.  Check out his one page summary of why he sees solid