Category / Economics

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?

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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.

by Hoosier Econ

U.S. Healthcare Spending Has Risen

Dr. Ed Yardeni has put together a post showing the consumer has saved dollars YTD on gasoline prices, the savings is being eaten up by higher medical expenses.
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Last week, I observed that while consumers are spending less of their budgets on gasoline, they are spending more on health care. The latest data through January show that the percentage of current-dollar consumption for gasoline plunged from last year’s high of 3.2% to 2.1% in January. Consumers saved $133 billion (saar) on gasoline over this period.

On the other hand, the percentage of their outlays for health care goods and services rose from last year’s low of 20.0% during March to 20.6% during January. I received lots of inquiries about this topic. Most readers want to know if this is attributable to Obamacare, which seems to have raised health insurance premiums, deductibles, and copays. I think so, but I don’t have the data to corroborate this conjecture.

Health care consumption includes spending paid for by both insurance and government programs, as well as out-of-pocket costs. Presumably and anecdotally, the latter have risen sharply. However, that wouldn’t necessarily bloat overall spending, though more out-of-pocket outlays would depress spending on other goods and services.

by Hoosier Econ

Criminal Convictions of Legal & Illegal Immigrants in Texas

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JustFactsDaily.com (link here) put out another question pertaining to crimes committed by non-U.S. residents in Texas. Here is the question and answer:

Over the course of their criminal careers, how many crimes have the 145,000 non-U.S. citizens booked into local Texas jails between June 1, 2011 and December 31, 2014 been convicted of thus far?

Correct Answer
More than 100,000

Just Facts obtained this information from the Texas Department of Public Safety (link here). Here is the breakdown of the criminal offenses and how serious of individuals law enforcement are dealing with.

According DHS status indicators, over 145,000 criminal aliens have been booked into local Texas jails between June 1, 2011 and December 31, 2014. During their criminal careers, these criminal aliens were charged with more than 389,000 criminal offenses. Those arrests include 795 homicide charges; 45,641 assault charges; 12,029 burglary charges; 45,608 drug charges; 496 kidnapping charges; 28,507 theft charges; 31,266 obstructing police charges; 2,648 robbery charges; 4,039 sexual assault charges; and 5,952 weapons charges. Of the total criminal aliens arrested in that timeframe, over 96,000 or 53% were identified by DHS status as being in the US illegally at the time of their last arrest.

According to DPS criminal history records, those criminal charges have thus far resulted in over 181,000 convictions including 336 homicide convictions; 17,382 assault convictions; 5,513 burglary convictions; 23,920 drug convictions; 172 kidnapping convictions; 13,097 theft convictions; 16,128 obstructing police convictions; 1,159 robbery convictions; 1,913 sexual assault convictions; and 2,638 weapons convictions.

Of the criminal aliens associated with these arrest and convictions, over 95,000 or 66% were identified by DHS status as being in the US illegally at the time of arrest.

by Hoosier Econ

U.S. Trash: How It’s Disposed

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Just Facts Daily posted the following question:

In the U.S., what portion of all trash (measured by weight) is recycled, burned for energy, or composted?

Answer: 46%

You can read more facts on trash at JustFactsDaily.com