Month: November 2019

Near steady job growth in an economy that’s meaningfully slowing is odd. Shouldn’t employment growth decline too? I think several factors are at work. Our economy is increasingly service oriented and efficiency gains in that giant sector are limited; relatedly…

While oil prices are down about 25% this year, share prices of oil & gas firms are down, on average, 50%. And of the 70+ US-based oil companies, only one has a share price that has not declined over the…

While Medicare for All offers advantages, be careful. Eliminating private insurers, the gate keepers who reduce access and overuse, will result in greater demand. If reimbursement rates are much reduced, doctors will earn less, time per patient will decline, and…

19Q3 US labor productivity has just come in at -0.1%, and while quarterly numbers are volatile, it was the first negative quarterly number since 15Q4. Looking at the results annually, productivity growth came in at a higher 1.4%, but that…

The Friday File: In 2018, Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand trust company, reduced its workweek from five days to four. Productivity jumped 20%. Last October, the firm made the switch permanent. This past summer, Microsoft Japan trialed the same thing.…

The US September trade deficit was -$52.5 billion, down from -$55 billion in August. More importantly, imports fell 1.7% M-o-M and -0.8% Y-o-Y while exports declined 0.9% M-o-M and -0.4% Y-o-Y. Declining trade volumes are a clear sign of global…

A key reason existing home sales have remained lackluster despite record low unemployment and spectacularly low interest rates is homeowners now stay in their homes for about 13 years, up from eight years as recently as 2010. Thus, the inventory…

Last decade, European growth and inflation were decent because excess savings in Germany and the north were matched by excess spending in Greece and other southern nations. Since the sovereign-debt crisis, southern nations have become much more frugal out of…

Despite the GM strike and the loss of 17,000 Census workers, 128,000 new jobs were created in October. Moreover, there were upward revisions totaling 95,000 to August and September. And, the labor force participation rate hit 63.3%; best since 9/13!…

The Friday File: Last week, a small window into the promise of quantum computing was opened. A mathematical calculation that would have taken a supercomputer 10,000 years to solve was done in 200 seconds. Rather than using bytes that are…