Econ70
US labor productivity generally increases 1%/year. Given the number of nonfarm US employees is 160 million, that means rising productivity leads, all else equal, to permanent job losses of 1.6 million employees/year. If AI doubles labor productivity growth to 2%/year,…
The Friday File: This week, Shrey Parikh beat Ishaan Gupta in a lightening-round 90-second spell-off tiebreaker, a format introduced in 2022, to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Shrey spelled 32 words correctly, Ishaan only 25. The spell-off is the…
Talk of Fed rate hikes is insane. Home prices/rents are falling, and they make up over 33% of the CPI. Oil prices are ready to sink once a peace deal is signed. Moreover, wage growth continues to weaken in the…
Existing housing inventory is rising and while still below pre-Covid levels, April’s reading is the best since 2020. However, sales activity is flat as a hockey puck. That combination is pushing up months-of-inventory, putting downward pressure on home prices. To…
There’s currently talk of suspending the $0.184/gallon federal gasoline tax. This would not only cost the Treasury $3.5 billion/month, but it’s bad policy, by inverting market signals that encourage conservation with a push towards increased consumption. Instead, use the money…
The Friday File: While Memorial Day is now all about cookouts and travel, it’s the national holiday honoring military personnel who died defending our freedom; Veterans Day honors all who’ve served. Memorial Day was first recognized as “Decoration Day” in…
April pending home sales rose 1.4%, better than the 0.9% expected but down from 1.7% last month. More importantly, Y-o-Y sales rose 3.2%, which at first glance looks passable until one recalls that last April was when “Liberation Day” tariffs…
The key economic problem, and the primary reason the bottom third or half of the population is struggling, is because of the near complete stagnation in real after-tax personal income. Corporate earnings are excellent, due in part to stellar productivity…
Kevin Warsh is the 17th Fed Chairperson. Since the start of the 5th Chairperson, Eugene Meyer on 9/16/30, the average return of the S&P 500 during the first three months of the new Chair’s term has been -12%. The worst…
April industrial production was surprisingly strong, rising 0.7% M-o-M with a 20bps upward revision to March. Manufacturing jumped 0.6% M-o-M and March was also revised up 20bps; nice. But the strength is highly selective and fits with the macro themes…