Recent Articles from Tucker Adams
The Economist: The other side of the looking glass
Two things struck me about this fascinating part of the world. First, Chinese men and women are plentiful. I don’t think there was a single time when I commented on a good road or tunnel through the mountains and wasn’t told, “Oh, it was built by the Chinese.”
The Economist: Businesses are hiring…
I think the good news is businesses are hiring and jobs are available again. If a worker wants to improve his job prospects, we have apprenticeship programs, a great community college system, and state schools that offer classes at night and on weekends. When the chancellor at CU Colorado Springs...
The Economist: Employment statistics
As I told a businessman who said he only had time to pay attention to one statistic, the single most important piece of economic data is the employment figure. The United States economy added 288,000 jobs in June, the fifth consecutive month of gains exceeding 200,000. The unemployment rate fell to 6.1 percent, continuing a […]
The Economist: Things aren’t always what they seem…
I recently sent a congratulatory note to one of my favorite business reporters, Wayne Heilman at the Colorado Springs Gazette, for emphasizing an important point in an economic data release. Even though the unemployment rate increased 6.3 percent, almost 20,000 discouraged workers returned to work and more than 17,000 new jobs were created, reflecting optimism about […]
The Economist: Is there a positive outcome for the Ukraine-Russia debacle?
A few years ago, I was in the Ukraine to collect folk songs with my high school granddaughter and Lena, a folklorist from the Russian Academy of Science. Tongue-in-cheek because I was pretty sure I knew the answer, I asked Lena, “Does the Crimea belong to the Ukraine or Russia?” The answer was instantaneous: “Russia, […]
The Economist: The Bitcoin phenomenon
When I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation back in 1979, my research topic was the money demand function and the effect financial innovations had as a result. I unearthed my copy this morning — all 391 pages — to remind myself what I’d learned. Money, in case you’ve forgotten your macroeconomics, serves three functions: •&[...]
The Economist: Looking to 2014
It’s that time of year, when we clean out the old to make way for the new. As I go through my ColoradoBiz files, I find things I never got around to and supplemental reflections on subjects I’ve already covered. First, the endless complaints that the rich get richer and the rest of us suffer. I […]
2014 Colorado Economic Oulook
2014 will be a decent, although fairly unremarkable, year for Colorado’s economy. Inflation and interest rates will remain low, the housing market will continue to improve and jobs will be a bit easier to find. Commercial real estate faces hurdles, as do agriculture and the oil and gas industry. T...
The Economist: Down the rabbit hole
The shenanigans in D.C. over the last year or so have convinced me that we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and joined Alice on the other side of the looking glass. So it seems like a good time to consider six impossible things before breakfast. Impossible Thing No. 1 – Redo the congressional districting. I’m […]
The Economist: Inflation revisited
I wrote briefly about inflation several months ago in my column on the end of quantitative easing. But now that the Federal Reserve is moving closer to reducing its purchases of government securities, let’s take a closer look at the inflation question. Remember that the Fed tries to accomplish two things: sustainable job growth and […]
The Economist: Ethics and economics
Economists normally don’t deal with issues of morality. We deal with facts and figures and measurable outcomes, leaving it to others to determine what’s right or wrong. But recent stories in the business press have me thinking about an ethical issue that has troubled me for a long time. First the recent stories: 1. The […]
The Economist: The end of quantitative easing
The topic on everyone’s mind these days seems to be, “What will happen when the Federal Reserve ends quantitative easing?” Most of the people I talk to have a vague idea that it will result in higher interest rates and higher inflation, but no clue as to why. It’s pretty simple, actually – just the […]