Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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• Grand Rapids Michigan Outsources Airport Parking Operations To Private Firm
• Unintended Consequences
• New York Times 10th Annual Year in Ideas; #1 Idea: Do-It-Yourself Macroeconomics

Grand Rapids Michigan Outsources Airport Parking Operations To Private Firm Posted: 20 Dec 2010 03:58 PM PST The trend towards dumping public unions continues to escalate in cities across the country. Latest on the list is from Michigan where a board votes to outsource parking operations at Grand Rapids airport Airport leaders unanimously selected a private firm to take over parking operations at Gerald R. Ford International Airport today, despite impassioned pleas by employees who will now have to reapply for their jobs and likely face pay and benefit cuts. The vote to select Chicago-based Standard Parking to manage parking came after several parking employees that are now employed by Kent County spoke during the public comment period. The group questioned the fairness of the process and asked the board to delay the vote and give them more time to negotiate to keep their current jobs. Finance Director Brian Picardat and airport leaders said the decision was difficult and based on a projected savings of $1.5 million over five years, even after a wage concession offered by current parking employees was factored in. In an article just prior to the decision, the Grand Rapids Press noted ... Parking agents who do maintenance and assist customers can make between $14 to $19 an hour, not including tips. Those jobs also come with nearly a 33 percent medical and fringe benefit package. Airport Director Jim Koslosky said the decision was tough because union leaders offered wage concessions that would have reduced the hourly pay rate to around $13 an hour, saving about $135,000 a year. But, even factoring in the wage concessions, airport staff determined that going with the private company would still result in a net savings of $1.5 million over five years. Without the wage concessions, the switch would save $1.9 million over five years. "Standard Parking already operates the airport's express shuttle lot and valet parking services, Koslosky said. The firm beat out five other companies that bid on the contract, including Grand Rapids-based Ellis Parking. The union members are complaining about fairness. What can possibly be more fair to everyone than putting the contract out to bid to 5 competing firms and taking the best offer? What's 100% fair is to watch out for taxpayers, not unions. Expect outsourcing to intensify. It will be a major theme in 2011, and a very welcome them at that. Taxpayers have simply had enough. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Unintended Consequences Posted: 20 Dec 2010 11:01 AM PST Here is an interesting video about the unintended consequences of various government actions. Ignore the lead-in message about hyperinflation and the scratchy-sounding start of a Fox News segment on BP and oil in the Gulf. Once the video gets going, the message about unintended consequences is very well presented. Link to Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4H9M55c64 Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

New York Times 10th Annual Year in Ideas; #1 Idea: Do-It-Yourself Macroeconomics Posted: 20 Dec 2010 09:37 AM PST For the past 10 years, at the end of the year, the New York Times discusses 10 ideas for the past year. The ideas vary widely and may pertain to social trends, sports, or war. The lead-in idea for 2010 was "Do-It-Yourself Macroeconomics". It certainly is an honor to be mentioned along with the Big Picture and Calculated Risk. Here is a snip from the 10th Annual Year in Ideas. For the 10th consecutive December, the magazine has chosen to look back on the past year through a distinctive prism: ideas. Our digest of short entries refracts the light beam of human inspiration, breaking it up into its constituent colors — innovations and insights from a spectrum of fields, including economics, biology, engineering, medicine, literature, sports, music and, of course, raw-meat clothing. Happy thinking! D.I.Y. Macroeconomics Until recently, the economics profession largely controlled the production, dissemination and interpretation of economic data. Now there's a new trend afoot: do-it-yourself macroeconomics, in which ordinary citizens pull apart the data and come to their own conclusions. The democratization of economics owes much to the financial crisis that first hit in 2007. That ongoing catastrophe, which few economists predicted, tarnished the profession's reputation, prompting some to look elsewhere for answers. They turned to — where else? — the Internet, where vast amounts of economic data that had once been hidden from public view were now online. Sites like FRED, maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, enabled anyone with a connection to the Web to download data on everything from local home-price indexes to credit-card balances to weekly fluctuations in diesel prices. At the same time, a growing army of knowledgeable "econo-bloggers" began analyzing the data available online. Strikingly, many of the authors of these blogs — the brains behind the Big Picture, Calculated Risk, Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis and others — aren't academic economists but people with real-world experience in financial markets. Their Web sites offer sophisticated interpretations of economic data and hold passionate debates with their readers over the merits of the data. As a result, economic data that were formerly greeted with grudging acceptance by the public — the latest unemployment figures, for example — are now the catalyst for endless popular exegeses. Please see the article for a wide variety of other ideas. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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