Chart of the Day: US Garbage Indicator

Hat tip to businessinsider.com for bringing this one to my attention. It is pretty much self-explanatory, but if you don't catch on at first, there is a businessinsider.com explanation below.

businessinsider.com / by Sam Ro / Jul. 26, 2012, 4:53 AM

Among the 21 categories of items shipped by rail, none have a tighter correlation to GDP than waste.

According to a 2010 piece on Bloomberg, economists Michael McDonough and Carl Riccadonna note that waste has an 82 percent correlation to US economic growth. This should be pretty intuitive. The more you produce, the more you throw out.

McDonough, a Bloomberg BRIEF economist, tweeted out an update on the indicator. And frankly, it stinks. Waste carloads are way down. Business Insider

Investors Are Leaving The Stock Market In Droves Because Of One Main Reason

A short piece from Andrew Sorkin of the New York Times explains in his DealBook column why American investors are giving up on US equities. From the article titled "Why Are Investors Fleeing Equities? Hint: It's Not The Computers"

Let me offer a more straightforward explanation of why investors have left the stock market: it has been a losing proposition.

 His letter came after he had sent a Twitter post that read: “Boomers can’t take risk. Gen X and Y believe in Facebook but not its stock. Gen Z has no money.”

An entire generation of investors hasn’t made a buck. “The cult of equity is dying,” Bill Gross, the founder of Pimco, wrote in his monthly letter last week. “Like a once bright green aspen turning to subtle shades of yellow then red in the Colorado fall, investors’ impressions of ‘stocks for the long run’ or any run have mellowed as well,” Mr. Gross wrote.

Hottest USA Weather On Record Since Record Keeping Began in 1895

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