Month: May 2016

In 2015, the US was, for the 4th year running, the top global producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons. In 2015, the US produced 15 million bbl/day of oil equivalent petroleum, including 9.4 million bbl/day of crude oil, and…

The Friday File: The cemetery with the largest number of American military dead in Europe is the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial, with 14,246 total burials. Most lost their lives during WWI. The largest cemetery in the Pacific is the…

With April durable goods sales surprisingly strong, retail sales edging up, trade data looking slightly better, housing strengthening, and industrial production increasing — despite continued weakness in agriculture, energy and export-oriented manufacturing — Q2 GDP should be 3%, up sharply…

Despite the cost, China continues propping up its overvalued currency. It does this by selling dollars and buying yuan. In this process, the Chinese money supply shrinks, making growth more difficult, China burns through its foreign reserves, which have already…

Doubling the pay threshold under which salaried workers must be eligible for overtime to $47,476 a year will make an additional 4.2 million employees, less than 3% of all workers, eligible for overtime pay. By comparison, increasing the minimum wage…

During 2/16, cash home sales were 35.7% of all transactions, their lowest February reading since 2008 and a 2.5 percentage points decline Y-o-Y. Cash sales were 59.2% of REO sales, 35.6% of resales, 32.6% of short sales and 15.2% of…

The Friday File: This past Wednesday, 100 pizza chefs built a 1.15 mile long pizza in Naples, Italy, breaking the previous mile- long record set in Milan last year. The recipe called for 4,409 lbs of mozzarella and flour, 3,527…

While inflation here appears to be rising, albeit slowly, in the Eurozone prices are falling. Despite rising global energy prices, April Eurozone inflation was -0.2% Y-o-Y with the YTD inflation also negative. Worse, the culprit was a decline in the…