Archive for February 2025

The Friday File: During the 1983/84 hockey season, fighting peaked at 1.17 fights/game. From 1983/84 through 2009/10, fighting declined to 0.6 fights/game. Since then, fighting has halved again and since 2017/18 has averaged about 0.2 fights/game. It’s due to a combination of a salary cap, deep analytics, and rule changes. The comment about going to…

Despite nominal GDP growth of $4.9 trillion since 2022, there has been minimal growth in government revenues. Had the government simply allowed the revenue base to rise with nominal GDP, the deficit would be $860 billion or 37% lower than it will be in FY25. It was Biden’s debt forgiveness and IRA and CHIPS bills…

In January, the US government employed 2.4 million civilians excluding the post office. In addition to 200,000 probationary employees, 75,000 who took the deferred resignation, President Trump also ordered a hiring freeze. The government needs 200,000 hires/year to keep up with retirements, etc. It’s quite possible that government employment will fall by up to 475,000…

Following the devastating California wildfires, to speed rebuilding, Governor Newsom signed an executive order suspending environmental reviews, told state agencies to identify rules that might impede construction, and instructed bureaucrats to rush necessary permits through. Why did it take the acute loss of 15,000 homes when California faces a housing shortage in the millions? If…

While lower-income Americans struggle, the economy continues to perform well. Why? The top 10% of earners, households making above $250,000/year, are doing remarkably well. They now account for 49.7% of all spending, up from 36% in 1995, and nearly 33% of GDP. From 9/20-9/24, their spending rose 58%, spending by the bottom 80% rose 25%,…

The Friday File: In 2024 it cost 3.7 cents to make a penny; 2006 was when it last cost less than a penny to make one. In 2024 the mint produced 3.2 billion pennies and lost $85.3 million in the process. The downside, people use more nickels which cost 14 cents. The US stopped minting…

If additional 25% tariffs are imposed on Canada/Mexico, along with the recently imposed 10% tariff on China, that likely leads to a 0.75 percentage point increase in inflation. If 60% tariffs are imposed on China and full reciprocal tariffs are imposed on all nations, that would probably lead to upwards of a 2-percentage point rise…

How much fraud is there in the federal government? A GAO report dated 4/24, pre-Trump, suggests somewhere between $233 billion and $521 billion in direct annual financial losses from fraud, based on a review of FY18-FY22 data. The report finds Treasury suffers the greatest percentage of fraud, with it consuming 23.87% of its budget, followed…

Seventy-three thousand homes were pulled from sale in December, representing almost 1 in 10 homes on the market, a 64% Y-o-Y surge, and the biggest December jump since 2015. There is clearly significantly more desire to sell than buy. This tells us that much of the inventory that hit the market in 2024 just sat…

January retail sales were down a substantial 0.9%, the biggest monthly decline in almost two years and well worse than the expected 0.2% decline. Car sales fell, as did sales at most stores. There have been occasional blooper months since 2020, but they have never been a harbinger of anything. More importantly, last month was…