Tag Archive: currencies

  1. Last Week In Switzerland, A Big Mac Cost $7.54

    Comments Off on Last Week In Switzerland, A Big Mac Cost $7.54

    The Economist invented the Big Mac Index in 1986 as an entertaining way to assess whether currencies were at the “correct” levels. The index uses purchasing power parity (PPP) to measure one currency against another. PPP is the idea that exchange rates should adjust so the same product (in this case, a hamburger) has the same price in two different countries when the price is denominated in the same currency. After updating the Index on January 22, 2015, The Economist reported: (more…)

  2. The Markets

    Comments Off on The Markets

    “So much depends upon, a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens.” 

    Well, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s monetary policy is a lot more complex than the simple tools mentioned in the oft-memorised William Carlos Williams’ poem, The Red Wheelbarrow, but an awful lot is depending on it. In some of those countries that have been affected negatively by changing expectations about quantitative easing, the importance of chickens, wheelbarrows, and other basic tools to a family’s economic well-being has not been forgotten.

    (more…)