70 Words on the Economy. Daily.
The Friday File: Baseball's 3 teams with the highest payrolls are watching the playoffs on TV. The Yankees ($202.6 million) were upset by the Detroit Tigers ($105.7 million), while the Philadelphia Phillies ($172.9 million) were upset by the St Louis Cardinals ($105.4 million). The Boston Red Sox … [Read More...]
The Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to Tom Sargent at NYU and Chris Sims at Princeton. Sargent's work has helped us understand the impact of permanent changes in economic policy. Sim's research has helped us measure the effect of temporary changes, or shocks, on the economy. Sims said he was … [Read More...]
The stock market has fallen by about 10% in the last two weeks, destroying about $2 trillion of wealth. If the market does not rebound quickly this will cut GDP by about $70 billion; half a percent. Here's why. Suppose you just lost $10,000 due to the market decline, will you cut your annual … [Read More...]
The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index fell 4.4 points to 50.9% in July, the worst reading since 7/10; barely above the 50% mark signaling growth. Since 4/11 the ISM has fallen 9.5 points; the worst 3-mth skid since 9/08-11/08 when Lehman failed. Other parts of the ISM like new … [Read More...]
Federal budgeting is nutty because the federal budget assumes every item in the budget automatically rises annually regardless of economic conditions by somewhere between 3% and 10%. Based on this insanity if we simply freeze spending at the current level and do it for a decade, the Congressional … [Read More...]
The current bull market that began on 3/9/09 has lifted the S&P 500 over 146%, and now ranks as the fifth best bull market in history. It’s also within 10% of the fourth best rally of 157.70% that occurred between 4/28/42 and 5/29/46. The combination of steady growth, no inflation, low interest … [Read more...]
The good: the index of leading economic indicators rose, as did retail sales, consumer sentiment, and housing permits. The bad: Europe is now officially in recession, first-time unemployment claims rose, manufacturing activity declined, inflation as measured four different ways is non-existent, … [Read more...]
The Friday File: In 2011, 1.15 billion watches sold for $30 billion. China sold the most, almost 700 million pieces, and at an average price of $2/watch; their industry was worth $1.5 billion. By contrast, the average price of the 30 million Swiss watches was $685/watch, making their industry worth … [Read more...]
The interest rate setting Federal Reserve Open Market Committee always includes the seven Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the President of the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) NY. The remaining four members rotate among the Presidents of the other 11 FRBs. For policy purposes, the rotating … [Read more...]
Forcing Congress to obtain health insurance through exchanges is bad policy. Because they get excellent coverage, Congress would push for top-flight exchange healthcare. This would encourage employers to drop their plans because their employees could get great congressional quality subsidized … [Read more...]
In Q1 2013, total household indebtedness fell to $11.23 trillion, 1% lower than in Q4 2012 and way down from the peak of $12.68 trillion in Q3 2008. Mortgage debt now stands at $7.93 trillion, HELOCs are at $522 billion, student loans are at $986 billion (yikes) and auto, credit card and consumer … [Read more...]
Retail sales jumped 0.1% in April and while not great, it beats the 0.5% decline in March! Moreover, it shows that consumers are spending despite the sequester and the payroll tax increase. And a key reason was the huge 3.5% decline in gasoline prices, the largest monthly drop in a decade. If … [Read more...]
The Friday File: Female models like Heidi Klum and Bar Rafaeli make millions annually, yet there isn’t even one famous male model. I think this is this because women spend much more on fashion and cosmetics than men. Moreover, they get their purchase ideas from fashion magazines which are full of … [Read more...]
Part of the reason employment growth is so weak is that despite sizable increases in residential construction spending, increases in construction employment have been MIA. From April 2012 to April 2013, residential construction put-in-place increased from $249 billion to $295 billion, an 18% rise. … [Read more...]
In 2011, 4.1 million women gave birth, 36% of which were unmarried, up from 31% in 2005. 57% of women without a high-school degree, 49% of women with a high-school diploma, 40% of women with some college and 8.8% of women with a bachelor’s who gave birth were unmarried. States with the highest … [Read more...]
Elliot Eisenberg, Ph.D. is a nationally acclaimed economist and public speaker specializing in making the arcana and minutia of economics fun, relevant and educational. He holds a B.A. in economics with first class honors from McGill University, as well as a Masters and Ph.D. in public administration from Syracuse University. Dr. Eisenberg, formerly a Senior Economist with the National … [Read More...]