Blog Posts by Peter Gorenstein

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The human population will reach 7 billion by the end of the month, according to United Nations, and that's no milestone to celebrate, says Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute.

Instead, we need to be concerned, he says. It's been only 12 years since we welcomed the 6 billionth human, and Sachs predicts it's likely only another 13 or 14 years before the population adds another billion people.

"This is a crowded planet," says Sachs. "This is trouble, frankly, for the planet." With this many people and counting, feeding, sheltering and protecting ourselves creates enormous environmental and economic challenges.

Can we prosper with this many people?

The key to managing it, Sachs says in the accompanying interview, is to begin to stabilize the population. One important way to do that is to lower fertility rates. And, the best way to do this is to reduce infant mortality rates, which on the surface may seem contradictory, but not as

Adam Smith is known as the father of economics. He taught the principles of free markets, free trade and the benevolence of the "invisible hand" that shapes most of our current global economic structure. Most would say his teachings have created a better society and allowed the upward mobility of billions of humans in the last two centuries.

And they would be right. But it seems the global economy has taken a turn for the worse since the global financial crisis of 2008-09. The current global economy is still recovering from the meltdown and is potentially on the brink of another crash triggered by Europe's massive sovereign debt problem.

Today's Daily Ticker guest Graeme Maxton, economist and author of "The End of Progress: How Modern Economics Has Failed Us," says it's because economists and market participants have neglected some of Smith's most important teachings, including that of social responsibility.

"The gap between rich and poor has gotten far bigger than it should have,"

A strange economic trend appears to be emerging with American consumers. Retail sales have been trending higher while consumer confidence is at a 30-year low.

Retail sales grew 1.1% in September, the fastest pace since February, we learned on Friday. Even excluding strong auto purchases, the figures were better than expected. Data for earlier in the summer was also revised for the better. All this, even in the midst of stock market tumult and fears of another recession.

Meanwhile, those same economic concerns are still weighing on confidence. Consumer confidence plunged more in October than expected, according to the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index. It's now at the lowest measure since May 1980.

How is this contradiction possible?

Howard Davidowitz, president of Davidowitz & Associates says it's simple. "We have got a bifurcation that keeps getting bigger and bigger," he explains to Aaron and Henry in the accompanying clip.

What accounts for the increase in sales is the

Remember when the Gap was cool?

Neither do we. Perhaps that's why this once great retailer continues to struggle.

The company says it plans to close about 200 stores in the U.S. by 2013, that amounts to one in every five stores in North America, in favor of expanding in international markets.

The Gap -- owner of Old Navy and Banana Republic -- has been plagued for years by falling sales and lower profits as it's been forced to perpetually discount goods in order to move product. Same-store sales fell 4% year over year in September, the worst showing of all 23 major retailers tracked by Thomson Reuters.

"The company targets the middle-income market, which often leaves it stuck between discounters and upscale brands," notes an article in Friday's Los Angeles Times. Howard Davidowitz, president of Davidowitz & Associates and a long-time retail industry insider, says the Gap's problems are far simpler than that. They are not selling fashion people want to own.

There's no fundamental

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Harrisburg, Pennsylvania now has the distinction of becoming the second U.S. city to file for bankruptcy protection this year. Pennsylvania's capital and the city of 49,000 has been struggling under a massive debt burden for years after an incinerator project ballooned to $300 million - 5 times the city's budget. It's the largest municipal default since Vallejo, California went under in 2008.

"We clearly will have more and more stress coming," says David Levy, chairman of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center. He is not, however, as confident as financial analyst Meredith Whitney about an impending municipal market meltdown. Whitney made headlines this year and last when she released a report predicting hundreds of billions in municipal market defaults. (See: Muni Bonds: The Next Crisis?)

Even as Harrisburg brings the issue to the fore, the U.S. has yet to see the kind of market deterioration Whitney expects. Earlier this year, the small town of

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Amid all the less than positive economic news this summer we learned earlier this month that auto sales in September were better than expected. U.S. sales grew nearly 10% last month versus a year ago. It was a particularly good month for American automakers. General Motors sales grew 20%, Chrysler's was up 27% and Ford rose 9%.

Overall, it was the strongest month for autos since April when the devastating impact of Japan's earthquake and tsunami destabilized the market, creating less supply and causing prices to rise. The U.S. is now on pace to sell 13.1 million vehicles this year. That's slightly better than some forecasts.

Rather than getting enthusiastic about the improvement in the market, Jeremy Anwyl CEO of Edmunds.com says the uptick is a result of "deferred demand" caused by the aforementioned Japanese natural disaster. "I would not read this as a fundamental market rebound I think we need to be cautious," he tells Aaron Task in the

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Perhaps no President before has pushed the U.S. to adopt and create new forms of energy as strongly as President Obama. In his 2010 state of the union address, Obama declared, "the nation that leads the world in creating new energy sources, will be the nation that leads the twenty- first century global economy."

The recent bankruptcy of solar panel maker Solyndra, a recipient of a $550 million government guaranteed loan, may put a crimp in those plans. Not only is it a public relations disaster for the White House, but critics now question the viability of renewable energy businesses and the role of government to support it.

In the accompanying interview Daniel Yergin, author of The Quest, the follow up to his Pulitzer Prize winning book The Prize, discusses the future of U.S. energy policy.

While not coming down one way or the other on the Solyndra situation, Yergin does believe strongly that the government should back new forms of energy.

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In The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane journalist Randall Lane documents the excesses and outrageous behavior that took hold of Wall Street in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

As the editor of Trader Monthly, a glossy magazine, targeted at Wall Street's elite trader class, Lane was often surrounded by insane amounts of wealth. "They were off the money time continuum," Lane says describing the money flowing between traders. "There was absolute detachment from the way human beings have always processed the idea of earning money."

And, that was good for business. "We were perceived as the nexus between all the money and this big pool of wall street and traders. All the luxury companies and all the consumer companies wanted to get all the Wall Street money."

To attract advertising dollars and traders alike, Lane's company was hosting up to 50 events per year, including to him they sponsored $1,000-a-