Archive for July 2021

The Friday File: While the most expensive summer Olympic games ever held are the current Tokyo games at $25 billion (in inflation-adjusted dollars), they are also the summer games with the 4th highest cost overrun, 266%. The bronze medalists in overruns, Barcelona (1992) at 275%. Capturing the silver medal, Rio (2016) at 352%, and winning…

Following yesterday’s meeting, the Fed suggested that tapering of its monthly purchases of Treasuries and MBS could begin as early as fall. But, with this morning’s softer than expected 21Q3 GDP growth number of 6.5% as opposed to the 8.5% expected, I highly doubt it. GDP is now above its 12/31/20 level, but 2.4% smaller…

After instantaneously falling to 5%, the percentage of persons working in an office building slowly rose to 20% by late 10/20. It then reversed and steadily fell to just 10% by Christmas. Since, it’s consistently risen and is now 25%. The city with the highest percentage of persons in the office is Austin at 53%,…

June new home sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of just 676,000/year, and May was revised sharply down. As recently as 1/21 sales were 993,000/year but have fallen sharply and are now below their pre-Covid-19 run rate. Moreover, months of inventory are jumping. After bottoming at 3.5 last September/October, they are now…

Since mid-March, the rate on the 10-year Treasury bond has eased from 1.74% to just 1.30%, despite rising inflation. Partly it’s Fed Chair Powell’s consistent message that inflation is transitory, but there’s more. Monetary stimulus is expected to be removed earlier than previously thought, less fiscal stimulus is anticipated from DC, the new Delta variant…

The Friday File: According to some astronomers, space begins at the exosphere, the outermost layer of the atmosphere, about 435 miles high. According to most, it’s the Karman Line, 62 miles above Earth, and beyond which lift from the air can no longer keep winged craft aloft. To the FAA, it’s just 50 miles. Branson’s…

Two reasons for the worker shortage that get little attention include retirements and business formation. From 2012 through 2019, annual retirements averaged about 2 million/year. In 2020, 3.2 million workers retired! In 2018 and 2019, business applications were 3.5 million/year. In 2020, 4.4 million, and through 5/21 2.5 million, a 6 million/year pace. Worse, the…

While house price appreciation is blowing past wage appreciation, reducing affordability, there are countervailing forces. Rates remain low, and critically, US household wealth grew by a staggering $13.5 trillion in 2020, half from equities. However, stock and home ownership are not evenly distributed. To wit, 70% of the wealth increase went to the top 20%…

While the official unemployment rate is 5.9%, that’s an underestimate. Adding up persons receiving regular unemployment insurance, pandemic extended benefits, and those collecting pandemic assistance, totals 15 million. That divided by the labor force of 161 million gives an unemployment rate of 9.3%. Alternatively, there are 145.8 million working adults, dividing that by the labor…

A two-year suspension of the debt ceiling that passed in 2019 will expire on 7/31/21, 12 days from now. Congress must either extend the current suspension or pass a higher debt ceiling limit. If neither occurs, the Treasury will relatively soon be unable to pay all its bills. While this kabuki theater plays out, bank…