Ironman is the alias of the blogger at Political Calculations, a site that develops, applies and presents both established and cutting edge theory to the topics of investing, business and economics. We should acknowledge that Ironman is either formerly or currently, and quite possibly, simultaneously employed as some kind of engineer, researcher, analyst, rocket scientist, editor and perhaps as a teacher of some kind or another. The scary thing is that's not even close to being a full list of Ironman's professions and we should potentially acknowledge that Ironman may or may not be one person. We'll leave it to our readers to sort out which Ironman might behind any of the posts that do appear here or comments that appear elsewhere on the web! http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations http://media.townhall.com/TownHall/icons/TH-feed-icon-128x128.gif http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations TownHall.com, Where your opinion counts. 128 Copyright (c) 2013 Townhall.com, A Salem Communications Web. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED jim.dearras@townhall.com (Jim De Arras) Sun, 19 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT Sun, 19 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss RSS.NET: http://www.rssdotnet.com/ And then, suddenly, the future for the S&P 500 snapped into clear focus. It would appear that investors have shifted their forward-looking focus to 2014-Q1 in setting the pace of change for U.S. stock... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/05/19/the-sp-500-snaps-into-focus-n1600502 4434e5ea-f8e9-425a-ba37-f46aa9c35ab0 Sun, 19 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT Late in 2011, after realizing that Spain had run up an exceptionally large budget deficit for the year, exceeding 8.5% of the nation's entire GDP, the newly elected government of Mariano Rajoy set out to get... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/05/18/austerity-done-wrong-n1600080 ed0811b4-7462-42d9-ae43-e75db6d2be13 Sat, 18 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT In 2012, after Spain's government had run up an extraordinary budget deficit in the previous year, the newly elected government of Spain's new prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, committed to both increase the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/05/17/definition-of-insanity-raising-tax-rates-and-expecting-a-higher-result-n1599113 91c42007-e3c2-4120-ac7c-9ee5dfe9f49b Fri, 17 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT When should you sell your stocks? We asked that specific question several weeks ago, before we exploited the fractal nature of stock prices in developing an objective statistics-based method for determining... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/05/15/when-should-you-sell-your-stocks-n1596834 6d82f605-b589-4cf9-93cc-04bb6ede1c77 Wed, 15 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT Going into this week, we're not much closer to knowing for sure if the stock market's climb from its last notable trough on 18 April 2013 is the result of noise, a fundamental shift in investor focus, or... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/05/14/a-big-week-for-the-sp-500-n1594239 a86e1d10-ca9c-47cd-bb1c-652cb23c20e3 Tue, 14 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT What would the U.S. unemployment rate be today if teens were part of the economic recovery? In October 2009, the official U.S. unemployment rate peaked at 10.0% as the total number of employed Americans fell to... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/05/13/americas-teenfree-job-recovery-n1593498 45b657b2-cbe6-4bda-8043-72da85b18430 Mon, 13 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT Over the past several weeks, we've identified three potential wild cards that could affect stock prices in a positive way in the margin of our favorite chart: The Fed could amp up its latest QE... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/05/12/playing-the-sp-500s-wild-cards-n1593190 01c26978-0241-435c-8cf7-b22203743695 Sun, 12 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT As expected, following the end of a record-breaking four-month long period in which publicly-traded U.S. companies incented by the fiscal cliff crisis set all-time records for the number of dividend increases, cuts... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/05/10/after-cliff-dividends-consistent-with-recession-n1592205 0a8fd20f-7ef6-4373-a965-b7b71f68b9c8 Fri, 10 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT After we had first announced that a new housing bubble had taken root in the U.S. economy beginning in July 2012, we soon followed up with additional analysis that suggested that it had perhaps begun to... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/05/06/the-second-us-housing-bubble-continues-to-inflate-n1587830 72e3fd3d-c8c7-4af8-bc28-09546b201666 Mon, 06 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT As expected, the first estimate of GDP for the first quarter of 2013 came in above the midpoint of our target forecast range, with the Bureau of Economic Analysis reporting that the aggregate national income of the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/05/05/a-preliminary-forecast-for-2013q2s-gdp-n1587344 f44b8ac1-6dfa-410f-9240-0d92e047f022 Sun, 05 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT Science is a wonderful tool for understanding how our world really works. But if the science supporting a given understanding is flawed, or worse, if it is slanted in favor of a politically-favored outcome, it can... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/05/02/the-myth-of-michelle-obamas-food-desert-n1581269 dfecb80a-1d3a-40c3-819c-1c7603d49ee8 Thu, 02 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT What a weird day for the stock market last Tuesday. And the weirdness started early. Pragamatic Capitalism's Cullen Roche sets the scene: Here’s a brief rundown of some of the data we saw in the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/04/28/a-closer-look-at-a-weird-day-in-the-markets-n1580851 81436866-9b56-4012-8627-8db6771fdb92 Sun, 28 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT Last Friday, we declared that order had indeed broken down for the S&P 500, marking the end of the most recent rally for the U.S. stock market. But is the rally really over? Well, we can't say that just quite... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/04/27/is-the-rally-for-the-sp-500-really-over-n1580305 aa274c04-bdbc-40e0-88a6-c7d1d16f09c5 Sat, 27 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT With the U.S.' deadline for filing income tax returns for 2012 come and gone, we thought it might be interesting to find out which Americans aren't really paying a fair share of all the income they earn... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/04/22/who-really-isnt-paying-their-fair-share-of-income-taxes-n1574571 f325ab93-1a3f-47f6-8c6d-8b10b641c886 Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT After having a bad day on 15 April 2013, the stock market had a good day on 16 April 2013, as everything looked up. Wall St. Cheat Sheet's John Nyaradi captured the mood: Among Tuesday’s... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/04/21/on-the-verge-of-a-breakdown-in-order-n1574093 17355dbe-7253-44aa-85aa-a0151ece86dc Sun, 21 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT From all appearances, the U.S. economy is now performing much more strongly than China's economy. Going by the growth rate of the value of trade between the two nations, it appears that the U.S. economy... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/04/15/new-us-housing-bubble-sparks-import-surge-from-china-n1567622 8f65d379-2cd7-4e6f-8d2b-78553fc6428e Mon, 15 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT 28 weeks ago, on 23 September 2012, a new trend in the seasonally-adjusted number of new jobless claims filed each week began. That trend has been characterized by extreme volatility, affected by such factors ranging... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/04/14/events-driving-unemployment-housing-n1567167 dcf21c80-6102-481d-a1ee-164958c2f924 Sun, 14 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT Today, we're following up our exploration of the fractal nature of the S&P 500 with an updated version of what we'll describe as the current micro-rally in the market, to which we've added some key... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/04/13/the-current-microtrend-in-the-sp-500-n1566590 d8a20164-d409-4026-9c3f-d442dd57df9c Sat, 13 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT A little over three months ago, we predicted that GDP for the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2012 would be finally recorded below a value of $13,726.5 billion in terms of constant 2005 U.S. dollars, which... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/04/08/taking-the-over-for-gdp-in-2013q1-n1560785 6f281788-c102-4f18-a844-d7ffd27f1050 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT According to Standard & Poor [Excel Spreadsheet], in March 2013, 73 publicly-traded companies in the U.S. acted to cut their dividends, the most since the all-time record of 93 was set in December 2012. To put... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/04/07/recordbreaking-numbers-of-dividend-increases-and-decreases-n1560240 edb4b494-aabe-40d8-b2a1-ceb7e7327a1d Sun, 07 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT When should you sell your stocks? Not long ago, we indicated that a 150 point decline in the value of the S&P 500 would be a "clear sell signal" for investors. But then, a week later, we... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/04/06/going-fractal-with-the-sp-500-n1559292 13c61ef9-c6b2-4676-a7a9-f479ee86f77c Sat, 06 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT In playing our "what if" game with the S&P 500 last week, we announced that the chart we featured would be "the last updated version of this chart that we'll be featuring for some... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/04/03/zooming-in-on-the-future-of-the-sp-500-n1556257 3f6a41a9-5841-487c-abfa-052f66431336 Wed, 03 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT It's easy to forget that it takes three components to make a fire: fuel, oxidizer and a spark. Typically, you only see two of the fire-making components coming together: fuel and the spark. But that's... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/04/01/bubbles-and-fire-part-3-n1554143 aea2372b-fe3e-4274-bee4-c51bc3552d1c Mon, 01 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT Now that we've addressed the combination of factors that sparked off the first U.S. housing bubble back in November 2001, we're going to turn our attention toward answering one of the most difficult... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/03/31/bubbles-and-fire-part-2-n1553748 f417f526-95ff-4d29-9085-d8b6e3547c0f Sun, 31 Mar 2013 04:01:00 GMT As all fans of the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters know, it takes three things to make a fire: fuel, oxidizer and a spark. If you combine these three things in the right proportions, you too can make a... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/03/30/bubbles-and-fire-n1553269 04e7d611-3eaf-4a4a-a876-e56179229978 Sat, 30 Mar 2013 04:01:00 GMT Not long ago, we featured a pretty cool looking chart illustrating the many minimum wages that have applied at the federal and for various states in the U.S. since 1994. Today, we're streamlining things a bit to... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/03/25/the-national-average-minimum-wage-n1548020 5667f485-a540-4ee9-9603-aaf666b165bc Mon, 25 Mar 2013 04:01:00 GMT Has the U.S. housing bubble begun to reinflate? In the past several months, there has been a lot of speculation to that effect, but so far, no one other than David Stockman has really come out and committed to an... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/03/24/the-us-housing-bubble-is-back-n1547457 ed3f281a-63bb-4289-9a7d-30be440e3b5c Sun, 24 Mar 2013 04:01:00 GMT On Monday, 11 March 2013, President Obama[1] secretly asked us to explain the dynamics of how cuts in R&D spending might affect the nation's economic growth. Here's the proof, as documented by... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/03/18/in-which-we-explain-how-cuts-in-rd-spending-can-affect-gdp-to-president-obama-n1536932 387599a4-1dcd-4890-8784-7b20454ec496 Mon, 18 Mar 2013 04:01:00 GMT In February 2013, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that some 143,492,000 Americans were counted as having jobs, as the official unemployment rate for the U.S. dropped to 7.7%. The last time that many... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/03/17/he-us-employment-situation-economy-qe-and-stock-prices-in-context-n1536521 7a4095bb-24ac-42aa-9c72-c86202abc32e Sun, 17 Mar 2013 04:01:00 GMT This may begin to change as early as later this morning, but considering that U.S. FICA payroll taxes were increased by 2% at the beginning of 2013, thereby reducing most working Americans take-home pay by a similar... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/03/04/the-essential-flatness-of-new-jobless-claims-n1525145 face9fb0-0a4d-4a08-9884-f8cf7df0d052 Mon, 04 Mar 2013 05:01:00 GMT Has boosting the U.S. minimum wage from $4.25 per hour in 1994 to today's $7.25 per hour helped or hurt the U.S. economy? To answer this question, we'll be tapping the U.S. Census Bureau's data... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/03/03/the-deadweight-loss-of-minimum-wage-hikes-n1524753 b304c36d-03b2-48dc-bbf6-ca630718f1c2 Sun, 03 Mar 2013 05:01:00 GMT Today, we're revisiting the topic of the ages of those who served in the U.S. armed forces during World War 2, because we have new information to add to it! Before we go any further, the reason... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/25/the-rejection-of-americas-volunteer-military-n1519555 0712954a-7b12-446c-9bd4-983b62abc412 Mon, 25 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT It's not often that we can measure something like pro or anti-American political bias in American movies, but we can today because of a unique experiment conducted by Hollywood! The reason why is because of... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/24/proamerican-vs-antiamerican-at-the-us-box-office-n1519121 b7f1dfc4-b7bf-4a77-9d4e-d20d36da8a51 Sun, 24 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT Starting last year, we began taking snapshots of Standard & Poor's forecasts for where the S&P 500's trailing twelve month earnings per share would be in the future at approximately three-month intervals.... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/19/winter-2013-snapshot-of-expected-future-sp-500-earnings-n1515099 fdb4fd79-908a-44dc-8e20-eb41650ce4ea Tue, 19 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT Did you know that there isn't anywhere on the web where you can go and get quarterly data for the S&P 500 before 1988? It's true, or at least it was true, until today! Prior to today, the only place you... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/18/quarterly-data-for-the-sp-500-since-1871-n1514629 8a3123ec-09bb-479f-834c-2d68b8875c3c Mon, 18 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT According to the CCH Standard Federal Tax Reporter, as of 2013, it now takes 73,954 regular 8-1/2" x 11" sheets of paper to explain the complexity of the U.S. federal tax code! Believe it or not,... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/17/how-many-pages-long-is-the-us-income-tax-code-in-2013-n1514277 ceaf6213-0ca4-45f5-9572-03449a80f8ab Sun, 17 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT What effect might President Obama's 2013 State of the Union address proposal to increase the U.S. federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $9.00 per hour have upon teens and young adults? That... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/16/teens-young-adults-and-president-obamas-minimum-wage-n1513828 e13de0fd-2dca-4f21-b00a-cd14bda30f7f Sat, 16 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT In 2012, China became the world's biggest trading nation, with the total value of that nation's exports and imports surpassing those of the United States. Bloomberg reports: U.S. exports and... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/13/china-surpasses-us-in-international-trade-n1511183 a44bc92b-d29b-4a98-9299-340eb8a5418b Wed, 13 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT We're returning to the cutting edge of the physics that describes how stock prices behave today, as we look backwards and forwards in time to sort out why the U.S. stock market is behaving as it... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/12/dividends-and-stock-prices-dont-say-we-didnt-warn-you-n1510357 5c8a5267-a20d-4446-bcea-ab9f973a3a78 Tue, 12 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT According to the January 2013 Employment Situation Report, the U.S. economy added just 17,000 jobs for individuals Age 16 or older in the month from December 2012 to January 2013. Or more technically, in the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/11/stagnation-dominates-us-employment-situation-n1509528 456922e2-43b1-43fa-95aa-ed0ad1f36dfa Mon, 11 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT This week marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 16th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which made it legal for the U.S. federal government to impose taxes upon the income earned by Americans. Since... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/10/the-100th-anniversary-of-us-income-taxes-n1509124 18ad270b-7261-4e32-86af-8b808cc08d64 Sun, 10 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT Barry Ritholtz' points to an outstanding post by Chris Arnade at Scientific American, with the irresistible title "The Real, and Simple, Equation that Killed Wall Street". Here's a sample, but... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/08/the-danger-of-leveraging-returns-n1507914 5156ce83-db8e-492e-b1b9-cded9d5f6bc1 Fri, 08 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT After spiking to a level higher than those recorded during the so-called "Great Recession" in the month of December 2012 in response to President Barack Obama's re-election and the corresponding guarantee of higher... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/05/dividends-recessions-and-records-n1505141 30131936-5df3-4898-a106-8f8b82699073 Tue, 05 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT As we expected, the number of new jobless benefit claims jumped from the low level reported in the previous week. Let's show where things stand now, then get to some analysis - our chart below shows where we are with... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/02/04/new-jobless-claims-totally-expected-and-what-to-expect-next-n1504354 a4de210f-d176-4f19-9687-22c5c2e59c16 Mon, 04 Feb 2013 05:01:00 GMT Craig Newmark points to some interesting analysis that suggests that the recent run-up in U.S. stock prices can be attributed to the newest rounds of quantitative easing: What is clear is that the recent market... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/01/28/the-rally-in-stock-prices-n1499094 8fe39c8a-841a-4fe5-9d8a-976747fbee0c Mon, 28 Jan 2013 05:01:00 GMT Where do you fit in the 2012 ranking of total money income by age group in the United States? While we've previously built a tool where you can find out your percentile ranking among all individuals, men, women,... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/01/27/visualizing-the-2012-distribution-of-income-in-the-us-by-age-n1498712 391b4a5a-620c-4997-ae95-d7e0c42e22b3 Sun, 27 Jan 2013 05:01:00 GMT Since 23 September 2012, the weekly data for seasonally-adjusted new jobless claims has been especially volatile. The data reported last week, which applies for the week ending 12 January 2013, would appear to be... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/01/25/dip-for-new-jobless-claims-likely-temporary-n1497115 398ea63b-690c-4381-a1d3-50b8e55bf112 Fri, 25 Jan 2013 05:01:00 GMT We have a project we're working on behind the scenes here at Political Calculations, where we keep having to work backward in time to figure out when an average American man or woman who has reached Age 65 in a given... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/01/24/how-long-do-you-have-left-to-live-at-age-65-n1496224 efbbda34-a621-4855-b1a6-b89be9775a90 Thu, 24 Jan 2013 05:01:00 GMT Craig Newmark points to some interesting analysis that suggests that the recent run-up in U.S. stock prices can be attributed to the newest rounds of quantitative easing: What is clear is that the recent market rally is... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/01/22/what-is-really-behind-the-rally-in-stock-prices-n1494243 594a258d-8be6-4a64-b192-5e98eb5b9aab Tue, 22 Jan 2013 05:01:00 GMT Today, we're taking a preliminary look at just who owns all the debt issued by the U.S. federal government through 30 September 2012 - the end of the U.S. government's fiscal year. Our chart below visualizes what we... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PoliticalCalculations/2013/01/21/who-really-owns-the-us-national-debt-n1493555 cd12c788-e72e-446a-b767-97ccf6b16de8 Mon, 21 Jan 2013 05:01:00 GMT