The Senate Budget Committee unveiled the chairman's mark for its version of the FY 2014 budget earlier this week (See WPI 12 March). The committee adopted that plan by a party-line vote of 12-10 on Thursday night after two days of debate with no amendments. This is the first budget reported out of the Senate Budget Committee in four years. On the House side, the chairman's mark similarly was passed by a party-line vote of 22-17 after 22 of 23 amendments were defeated.Ranking Minority Member Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) noted that savings are reduced from $1.85 trillion to $700 million and also includes a $1.5 trillion increase in revenues. That difference comes from the contention that the Senate budget "turned off" the sequester. However, a...
Yesterday, Alberta held a referendum on whether to begin the process toward independence from Canada. With more than one million votes counted as of early Tuesday morning, around 77 percent supported remaining in Canada, and 23 percent voted to start the process of separation, according to unof...
Last week, September inflation reports showed that the Producer Price Index rose 1.3 percent, far ahead of the 0.6 percent consensus expectation, while the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.6 percent, in line with expectations. However, September also marked the 66th consecutive month that both...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.