Month / March 2015

by Hoosier Econ

2015 NFL Free Agency: $1.5 Billion in Contracts Signed by Players

suh dolphins
NFL free agency kicked off on Tuesday March 10th. Numerous players either stayed or left their teams in pursuit of greener pastures. How much in contracts were signed this past week? Sportrac.com has a system set up tracking these numbers and here is the breakdown from studying the signings.

– Over 100 free agents signed

– Average length of contracts is 3 years

– Total amount of all contracts signed (disclosed/undisclosed) tops over $1.5 Billion

– Total amount of guaranteed money NFL teams must pay is $634 Million. The top five contracts account for $170.9 Million of that.

NFL contracts almost never get fully paid out. Each year these contracts are reworked, players cut, retirement or clauses are invoked terminating the amounts paid. Guaranteed money is paid out in full barring any contract clauses not met.

by Hoosier Econ

States Tax Revenue Still Down

Cancel out the noise of propagandist who continually say the economy is booming and follow the data. Wall Street Journal shows compelling data of states tax revenue is in bad shape as spending increases. Here is what the Wall Street Journal found:

There are 30 states still collecting less in taxes, adjusted for inflation, than when the recession hit, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts study that examined the data through September. Income-tax collections grew on a real basis by 7.1% since late 2008, while sales-tax receipts rose by 1%, according to an analysis by Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York.

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Government employment is actually down on the state level. Most of the attrition is probably attributed to from an aging workforce i.e. retirement:

State and local governments are employing 620,000 fewer people than they did six years ago. New municipal-bond sales stand at a more-than-15-year low as states remain hesitant to start public works and other capital projects.

If anyone tells you all you have to do is magically raise taxes and all ills are solved, they are terribly wrong.

Coming out of the recession, several states raised sales-tax rates to make up for deep revenue drops. In Arizona, a sales-tax increase was only temporary, meant to serve as a three-year bridge until collections returned. Still, total tax revenues as of the third quarter of last year remained 10% below their prerecession levels on an inflation-adjusted basis, according to the Pew analysis.

You can read the rest of the Wall Street Journal article here.

by Hoosier Econ

Women Wanting “Big Butts” on the Rise

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A trend has been rising last few years with women…..Big Butts. Think it’s a joke, take a look at some of the money spent in pursuit of this fashion according to the Hollywood Reporter:

According to the American Association of Plastic Surgeons, desire for bigger behinds in the past five years has led to the fastest-growing cosmetic procedure, the “Brazilian butt lift,” in which fat is liposuctioned from other regions in the body to pad and “pop” the butt. “The biggest jump percentage is in butt enlargements,” says Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Lawrence Koplin.

For a price: The cost begins at $9,500, the procedure takes three to six hours with a minimum of 10 injections per cheek, and most Brazilian butt-lift patients must sleep on their stomachs and cannot sit down for two weeks.

There are even devices that can be bought for the appearance of a big butt:

Lisa Reisler, who with partner Susan Bloomstone invented Booty Pop padded panties in 2010, says: “We are now selling a pad that’s 40 percent larger than when we launched, and there are tons of requests. It used to be if your husband said your booty looked big in jeans, it was an insult. Now, it’s a compliment.

You can read the rest of the article here.

by Hoosier Econ

How Americans Will Spend Their Tax Refund

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American Morning News interviewed Kay Bell from BankRate.com explaining a survey they with 1,003 adults and how they will spend their tax refund. USA Today posted the survey and here is how it broke down:

34% say they’ll use it to pay down debt

33% say they’ll save or invest the money

26% say they spend the extra cash on necessities such as food and utility bills

3% want to use it to live it up and go on vacation or a shopping spree

Here is another snapshot of Americans thinking on income taxes/tax refunds that would make Dave Ramsey shake his head at:

Some people view having extra money withheld from their paychecks for income tax as a way to save, says Bankrate.com tax analyst Kay Bell. But she advises against it because “the bank of Uncle Sam” pays no interest.

The rest of the article is here and has some more good stats obtained by the survey.

by Hoosier Econ

U.S. Farmers Are Exceptional

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Kokomo Tribune writer Josh Sigler provided a good investment piece about why farming is an excellent investment. I blog about farmers and farming because the lack of respect towards the industry by people is simply naive. Here’s a snippet of the article that should give the world pause in how exceptional farmers in the United States are:

In 1928, the world’s population was 1.2 billion people. The United States made up 10 percent of that population, and at the same time, provided 10 percent of the world’s agricultural output.

By 1968, the world’s population had ballooned to 3.5 billion. The U.S. made up 6 percent of the world’s population, but increased its agricultural output, providing 20 percent of the world’s crops, doubling the output in 40 years.

Those numbers continued along the same path, and by 2012, the world’s population rose to over 7 billion. The U.S. now makes up 3 percent of the world’s population, but in modern times, produces 30 percent of the world’s agricultural output.

The world has a long way to go in catching up to the United States.

H/T Indiana Economic Digest

by Hoosier Econ

How Many Immigrants in Indiana are Here Illegally?

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The Times Herald wrote up an article on Indiana’s immigrant population and found this piece of data:

The Indiana Business Research Center says a Latino population of 422,200 will double in the next two decades. The Pew Research Center estimates about 85,000 of the state’s Latino population may be here illegally.

by Hoosier Econ

Social Security Administration Has Lots of Old People on the Books

Via CNSNEWS.COM –

Many people are living longer, but not to age 112 or beyond — except in the records of the Social Security Administration.

The SSA’s inspector general has identified 6.5 million number-holders age 112 — or older — for whom no death date has been entered in the main electronic file, called Numident.

The audit, dated March 4, 2015, concluded that SSA lacks the controls necessary to annote death information on the records of number-holders who exceed “maximum reasonable life expectancies.”

“We obtained Numident data that identified approximately 6.5 million numberholders born before June 16, 1901 who did not have a date of death on their record,” the report states.

Some of the numbers assigned to long-dead people were used fraudulently to open bank accounts.

Read the rest here

by Hoosier Econ

How Much Money Goes Into March Madness Bracket Pools?

march madness
Tis the season where millions of Americans take a gamble in starting to fill out their NCAA tournament brackets. Men and women will take out their wallets and throw down some money to enter in a pool with other in the hope they make some easy money in applying their college basketball knowledge. How much money do Americans spend during this time of year? It’s very hard to estimate since 90% of all NCAA tournament gambling is off the books. But lets take a look at some history to guage this sports investing event.

In 1999 there was a report issued by then President Bill Clinton:

National Gambling Impact Study Commission, formed by President Clinton, released a 1999 report citing surveys showing that well over 90 percent of all sports betting nationwide takes place off the books. If accurate, that would push the total wagered on the NCAAs across the country closer to $1 billion.

Fast forward to 2014 where more data can be evaluated yet is still a rough estimate, one sports investing website gave this estimate:

The site Pregame.com estimates that wagering on this year’s March Madness tournament will exceed $12 billion, more money than was riding on the Super Bowl. Of that, $3 billion will be put into office pools of tournament brackets.

Comparing those two estimates, NCAA Tournament betting has exploded 1100% in America. Good luck with your tournament pools this year.

H/T The Fiscal Times and BetFirm.com

by Hoosier Econ

Total Cost of Ferguson Riots

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Costs of the Ferguson, Missouri riots still trickle in. The variance of it is still hard to track down due to costs outside the known figures government officials have tallied. The business and personal side still have to be studied. I have tracked down some articles dealing with both the August and December riots.

The Gateway Pundit reported in October the total August costs of the first riot to taxpayers was around $5.7 Million.

The massive police response to Ferguson in the wake of the shooting death of Michael Brown on Aug. 9 will take nearly $1.5M from the Missouri state budget.

According to the Missouri Department of Public Safety, the Missouri State Highway Patrol costs total $1.1M while activating the National Guard will cost the state roughly $384,000.

This estimate is solely for the initial response: from the time protests erupted right after Brown died to the last few weekdays of August.

St. Louis County officials estimated the county’s initial cost will be $4.2M. That’s a combination of money going to police overtime, fixing damaged cop cars and food and supplies for first responders.


Channel 4 KMOV/St. Louis reported part of the costs in the August riot was overtime paid to law enforcement and civilians which totaled $855,000.

The December Ferguson riots cost $20 Million according to Garry Earls, St. Louis CFO.

The grand total from both riots cost local/state government around $26 Million. Now the unknown costs will take time to calculate. Insurance companies at some point will release damage to business and what they paid out. Property Casuality 360 did give a sobering fact of when disaster happens and the amount of businesses that do not reopen:

Roughly 40-60% of small businesses never reopen their doors following a disaster.


Businesses in Ferguson face additional challenges. Property Casuality 360 pointed out those who do reopen face higher insurance costs which ulimately mean they get passed along to the consumer. Another obstacle is lack of business which KMOX CBS in St. Louis reported on in October. Quoting one business owner stating his sales were down 40%.

In the end, Ferguson will probably never get back to what it was before the riot.

by Hoosier Econ

U.S. Government Hits Debt Limit on March 16th

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United States Government spends so much money these days that the debt is reaching its ceiling again. Do not expect Republicans put much of a fight up in stopping any raises as they usually join Democrats in governments spending addiction.

Via CNBC –

Unless Congress takes action, the U.S. will hit its debt limit on Mar. 16, but would begin taking “extraordinary measures” to finance the government on a temporary basis, according to the U.S. Treasury.
In a Friday morning letter to House Speaker John Boehner and other House and Senate leaders, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that his office will be forced to suspend the issuance of State and Local Government Series securities on Mar. 13 unless the debt limit is raised.

“Accordingly, I respectfully ask Congress to raise the debt limit as soon as possible,” Lew wrote in his letter.

The Congressional Budget Office said this week that if Congress does not raise the federal debt limit, the Treasury Department will exhaust all of its borrowing capacity and run out of cash in October or November, slightly later than a previous forecast.