Econ70

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.…

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…

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…

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…

The Friday File: While fluid dairy milk consumption has declined from 247 lbs/person in 1975 to 146 lbs/person in 2018, fattier milk is very popular. 38% of households have 2% milk in their refrigerator, followed closely by whole milk at…

While June annual inflation as measured by core CPI was 4.5%, the highest rate in decades, Treasuries were unmoved. Price increases for used cars and trucks singlehandedly drove one-third of the index rise. More generally, 90% of the items in…

YTD gaming revenue in Vegas is $4.06 billion, down just 5.2% from Jan-May 2019, and YTD auto traffic is up 5.6% compared to two years ago. However, deplaned passengers and room nights are both down 41%. But, comparing 5/21 to…

To keep very short-term interest rates above zero, the Fed recently boosted the rate it pays banks to lend money back to the Fed (you read correctly) overnight from zero to a whopping 0.05%. The first day after the increase,…

In June, construction employment fell 7,400 and totaled 7.42 million, 238,000 below its 2/20 pre-pandemic peak. Residential construction employment rose by 15,200 in June and it’s 3,051,000, 51,000 higher than in 2/20. Conversely, June nonresidential construction employment shrank by 22,600…

The Friday File: Until recently, the world record for the tallest stack of M&Ms was jointly held by Silvio Sabba of Italy and Brendan Kelbi of Australia. Recently, however, Will Cutbill, a British civil engineer, broke the Guinness World Record.…