Archive for June 2014
Wonky Wages
Seattle’s decision to boost its minimum wage to $15/hour, the highest anywhere, is bad policy. Unlike a rise in the federal minimum wage which affects all employers, this increase only applies inside the city. Thus, employers in low-wage industries in Seattle will be at a distinct financial disadvantage compared to similar firms outside Seattle. This…
Read MoreSuper Stamp
The Friday File: Last week the only British Guiana One-Cent Magenta stamp (BGOCM) was sold at auction for a record $9.48 million, breaking the old record of $2.2 million for the Treskilling Yellow in 1996. Amazingly, the BGOCM has broken the world record for a single stamp auction price each of the last four times…
Read MoreWretched War
This Saturday is the 100th anniversary of the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria — heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne — and his wife Sophie – which set in motion the start of WWI exactly one month later. 8.5 million soldiers were killed, 21.2 million were wounded, and 7.8 million were prisoners or went…
Read MorePathetic Predictions
On 4/30/14 Q1 GDP (which ended a month earlier) was estimated at 0.1%. On 5/29/14 it was revised down to -1.0%, and on 6/25/14, three months after the end of Q1, it was knocked down to -2.9%! The difference between the first and the third estimates of Q1 GDP is three percentage points, or $125…
Read MoreNice News!
On Monday we learned that existing home sales in May jumped 4.9% to a rate of 4.89 million/year, the best pace since last October. Better yet, yesterday we learned that new home sales jumped from a rate of 433,000/year in April to 504,000/year in May, the best activity level since 5/08 and that consumer confidence…
Read MoreAlternative Approaches
Inflation as measured by the CPI is 2.1%, as measured by personal consumption expenditures (PCE) is 1.6%, below the Fed’s 2% target. Importantly, the Fed uses the PCE to monitor inflation. Historically, the PCE is 0.5% lower than the CPI, as is the case now. The reason; the PCE accounts for changes in consumer buying…
Read MoreBudget Brew
The Friday File: Dividing the cost of a beer by the minimum wage tells you how much work it takes to buy suds. Amazingly, it takes 12 minutes to afford a beer in Puerto Rico and 18 minutes to buy one in Australia and Luxembourg. Here it takes 24 minutes. Across Europe it averages 45…
Read MoreBook Betting
The current fight between book publisher Hachette and Amazon over pricing is one between a cartel (the publishers) and a monopolist (Amazon). Turns out e-books are 40% more profitable for publishers and 40% less remunerative to authors than hardcover books! Thus, it’s not surprising Amazon is squeezing Hachette over e-book pricing. The likely outcome; Hachette…
Read MoreFed Following
At today’s press conference, Fed Chairwoman Yellen did away with forward guidance. Instead, she suggested that the Fed will rely on an array of lagging economic indicators to set policy. She is signaling that the Fed will keep interest rates exceptionally low and allow inflation to systematically exceed 2%; appropriately dovish policies. Separately, her suggestion…
Read MoreBullish Britain
Across the pond, the UK economy is really picking up. Employment is up sharply, real GDP rose 3.1% in the first quarter, the best growth since 2008, the labor force participation rate is 72.9%, the highest it has been almost a decade and hours worked are at a 25 year high. If these trends continue…
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