Jason William Keith’s Blog

A friend passed this story on to me via Facebook. The story is based on data from the US Bureau of Labor that was compiled by DC’s McClatchy. I remember discussing this phenomenon during my sociology studies and I really don’t find this at all surprising. Lower income people are more likely to empathize with their fellow poor. They are also less likely to fear further destitution.

Here is the full story.

Charitable Giving By Income Group

courtesy of SNL.

GM has made a great decision in discontinuing the Pontiac brand. I don’t have anything against Pontiacs, but GM desperately needs to shrink the number of automobiles it manufactures. This will not be the last GM brand that will be discontinued or sold.

Treasury Department Issues Emergency Recall Of All US Dollars

The average home in Detroit is selling for under $14,000.  Detroit’s decling population explains most of its real estate prices.  Detroit proper’s population is about 900,000.  During its hey-day in the 1950s, Detroit had a population greater than 1.8 million people.

It may be in he cities best interest to begin catering the growing retirement industry.  The shift would increase the service revenues (especially the medical industry) of the area and help offset its declining manufacturing industry.  It would be beneficial to retirees as well.  Detroit has a comparibly low cost of living.

The state of the American auto industry is in quite a mess.  And while Americans are divided about if, how, or what our government should do to help revive it, Germans have an altogether different faith in their auto industry.  In fact, they trust their automakers to act as banks, and gladly keep their savings with the auto companies.

Here is the full story at WSJ.

The stimulus bill signed by President Obama will put about $8 back into most people’s weekly paychecks.  The Wall Street Journal asked leading economist to give advice to how the average American could best use the extra money.

Here is my favorite response:

Ethan Harris, Barclays Capital: Get a haircut. It is a purely domestically produced service with extremely high labor content. This means no drain in spending power out of the country: it is “Buy American” without violating any trade agreements. It also has a high impact on employment due to the high labor content. Finally, an $8 haircut–as opposed to the $100 variety– is probably being done by a low income person who is likely to spend rather than save the 8 bucks, ensuring strong second round spending effects. We will groom our way to recovery…

Here is the full story at the WSJ.

He does not seem convinced.  Paul Krugman does not seem to enthusiastic either.