Will canceling my debt negatively impact my credit score?

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Abbreviated Question: 
Will canceling my debt negatively impact my credit score?
Answer: 

1. The most common credit score is of the form used by FICO (Fair Isaac Corporation).  The calculation has five components, payment history, amount owed, length of credit history, new credit, and type of credit used.  The first two of these are positively affected by the debt forgiveness, and the others are not affected.

Troy Schulte

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Iowa State University’s Departments of Economics and History honored Troy Schulte, Kansas City, Missouri, with the Department of Economics and Department of History Outstanding Alumni Award at an honors and awards ceremony on Oct. 25, 2019, in Ames, Iowa. The award recognizes outstanding alumni from the Departments of Economics and History in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State.

Steve Berger

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Steve Berger is a nationally recognized champion for soil health and conservation. A farmer near Wellman, Iowa, Berger serves as president of Dennis D. Berger and Son, Inc., an operation that includes 2,200 acres of corn and soybeans and more than 15,000 market pigs.

A stock exchange strategy that can deliver?

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Abbreviated Question: 
A stock exchange strategy that can deliver?
Answer: 

For such a strategy to work at the least following two conditions must hold:

- each time you transact, you need to correctly pick a stock that would eventually rise in price by enough to offset the bid-ask spread and transaction fees you would incur for trading,

Joe Hulett

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Pragmatic approach to community service -- Joe Hulett’s economics history led him to volunteer for Lewiston Urban Renewal Agency

Craig Clohessy: You have a diverse background, both education and work history. You grew up in the city of Palouse and worked on a farm as you went through school. Talk a little bit about that, both your education and your work background and what led you from point A to point B to point C.

Dhamu R. Thamodaran

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Dhamu R. Thamodaran, executive vice president, chief strategy officer and chief commodity hedging officer for Smithfield Foods, Inc., has been a global leader in the agricultural industry for more than 30 years.

How to derive market information from listing prices only

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Abbreviated Question: 
How to derive market information from listing prices only
Answer: 

The question you are asking is about the bid-ask spread.  The bid is what a buyer wants to pay for an item. The ask is what the seller wishes to receive.  You know the ask, you want to know the bid.  The bid would be demand, the ask would be supply (see, Ask an Economist any question and eventually you'll get "Supply & Demand" as an answer).  For example, a December gold futures contract today had a spread of about 20 cents per ounce.

Can artificial scarcity be used as a nudge?

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Abbreviated Question: 
Can artificial scarcity be used as a nudge?
Answer: 

Thaler and Sunstein in their book define nudge as “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people's behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.”

By that definition artificial scarcity cannot be considered a nudge. Generally speaking, artificial scarcity leads to an increase in prices and hence it alters people’s economic incentives. Nudges do not alter economic incentives of the people. 

Glen R. Smith

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Glen R. Smith was designated chairman and CEO of the Farm Credit Administration by President Donald Trump on July 17, 2019. He has served as a member of the FCA board since December 2017. Mr. Smith will serve a term that expires May 21, 2022.

He also serves as a member of the board of directors of the Farm Credit System Insurance Corporation, which is an independent U.S. government corporation responsible for ensuring the timely payment of principal and interest on insured notes, bonds, debentures, and other obligations issued on behalf of FCS banks.

Sam Kramer

Feature Story

Almost as soon as he set foot on the campus of Iowa State University as a freshman, Sam Kramer became interested in biodiesel production and use. ISU has a robust biodiesel program, complete with a small reactor and unique “BioBus” club.

“My passion for biodiesel comes from my drive to improve my surroundings,” Kramer said. “Biodiesel production at Iowa State takes cumbersome waste cooking oil and replaces it with a product that mitigates greenhouse emissions, helping more than just the Ames community.”

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