Month: October 2021

This past Wednesday, Star Trek’s Captain Kirk (William Shatner) went where almost no man has gone before, space, in a convergence of science fiction and science. At age 90, Shatner became the oldest person in space, eclipsing the record set…

During the Housing Boom peak of 7/2006, it took 42% of median household income to cover mortgage payments on a median-priced house. That percentage bottomed at 26.9% in 1/2013 and peaked at 32% in 11/18. In 2019 and 2020, the…

This past August, 2.9%, or 4.27 million employees quit their jobs. This eclipsed the previous record high, dating back to 2000 when record keeping began, of 2.8% in April! In leisure and hospitality, the number quitting was 971,000 or 6.4%!…

US employers added a disappointing 194,000 seasonally adjusted jobs in September. Worse, the unemployment rate declined because 183,000 persons left the labor force, it’s now 3.1 million people smaller than pre-Covid-19. Fortunately, July and August were collectively revised upwards by…

Earlier today, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to David Card, Joshua Angrist, and Guido Imbens. This was an inspired decision! Card is one of several economists to systematically use natural experiments to better understand real world phenomena, including…

The Friday File: In the sport of Speedgolf, Lauren Cupp is the world’s fastest female. In this sport, the score is the sum of strokes plus time. Recently, she set a new world record of 122:48. That’s a combination of…

Since the inflation we are experiencing appears likely to linger somewhat longer, calling it transitory may no longer be justified. Rather, what about ephemeral? Expansionary monetary policy is coming to an end and will become contractionary by late 2022. Similarly,…

Absent a debt ceiling increase, the US will begin running out of money by mid-October. One solution, a $1 trillion coin made by the Treasury and deposited at the Fed. Presto, a trillion dollars! The problem – this has the…

Over the last eight months, Covid-19 vaccination rate disparities between racial and ethnic groups, no matter how defined, have disappeared. However, gaps reflecting political affiliation have widened precipitously. At present, among those 18 and over, 92% of Democrats, 68% of…

From the dotcom bust in 3/01 to the Housing Bust in 1/08, household savings rates steadily fell from 6% to just 3%, of course house prices were skyrocketing. From the Housing Bust through 12/14, savings rates rose to 8% and…