Econ70

While bank earnings are way up from where they were in 20Q1, looks can be deceiving. The biggest earnings drivers have come from increases in trading, capital markets (fees from stock and bonds sales), and large releases of loan loss…

March sales of new homes hit a seasonally adjusted annualized rate 1.02 million, 20% above the very strong February number of 846,000, their best performance since 11/06. Moreover, the inventory of completed homes for sale is at record low, below…

The Friday File: In 2015, the average US household had 1.6 streaming subscriptions, it rose to 1.7 in 2016, and 2.0 in 2017. In 2018, it hit 2.2, in 2019 2.7, and in 2020, amazingly 3.1. 75% of households have…

In 1996, prior to the current aviation safety regime, US passenger airlines had a fatal accident rate of one crash for every two million departures. That year, there were 350 deaths in domestic airline accidents. By 2006, the rate had…

Almost forty years ago, on 10/9/81, the interest rate on a 30-yr mortgage peaked at an amazing 18.63%. Today that rate is just 3.04%, a decline of 83.7%! Conversely, today, the price for a thousand board feet of lumber on…

In Israel, where per capita Covid-19 injection rates are highest, 62% of the adult population have received at least one vaccination (we’re at 50.4%), daily cases/million residents have fallen from a peak of 952 in mid-January (we peaked at 770…

Last week we learned March retail sales jumped 9.8% M-o-M, their best showing since 5/20 and second best showing ever. In addition, consumer confidence hit its highest level since the pandemic began, while first-time claims for unemployment hit their lowest…

The Friday File: At 4 feet 3 inches in length and weighing in at 49 lbs, Darius, a Flemish Giant Rabbit, has held the Guinness World Record’s largest rabbit title since April 6, 2010. Unfortunately, this leporine recently vanished from…

Unsurprisingly, researchers find that raising unemployment benefits by $600/week last spring reduced job applications. But despite the higher wages that workers might have demanded, and the reduced job search conducted, job vacancies did not rise! This suggests the generous unemployment…

In a clever study, researchers compared municipal bond yields in counties with three or fewer local newspapers before and after a newspaper closure, to counties with three or fewer newspapers that didn’t experience a paper closure. They found that three…