Economic News From Far Away to Close to Home

There was a question in class on Thursday about the effect of the World Cup on the world's economy. I'm not up on the World Cup, but other economists are.

In NY the state government proposes to borrow $6 billion from the state pension fund so that they can loan it to local governments so that the local governments can make their annual contributions to the state pension fund.

On the gulf coast, the oil spill has reduced the supply of shrimp raising the market price for frozen shrimp by 30%.

Over in Mesa, the last citrus packing plant is shutting down due to reduced volumes. Fruit will now have to be trucked to Yuma at considerable expense to be processed. This will shut down most of the remaining groves in the area.

Finally, Arizona has sold the state Supreme Court building among others to raise $300 million in cash to help fund the budget. The state will buy the buildings back over the next 30 years.