Econ70
For the year ending 7/1/20, the US population grew just 0.35%, the slowest rate since at least 1900! Part of the reason is Covid-19 related, but the entire decade was a demographic bust due to an aging population and limited…
Initial weekly jobless claims, a proxy for job losses, rose by 181,000, its biggest rise since 8/22/20, almost five months ago. Moreover, retail sales fell for the third straight month, consumer confidence slipped slightly, and inflation be it the CPI,…
Series Streaming The Friday File: Across Amazon, Disney+, Hulu and Netflix (but not HBO Max) the most streamed series was The Office at 57.1 billion minutes. A distant second was Grey’s Anatomy at 39.4, followed by Criminal Minds with 35.4.…
Prior to Covid-19, US retail vacancy rates were 4.5%. They are now 5.4% and are expected to end 2021 at 6.2%. As a result, retail rents, which had been rising by 2% per/year before the pandemic, are now expected to…
The IMF says in 2020 global GDP shrank by a staggering 4.3% (a decline only previously experienced during the Depression and both World Wars), or -$3.6 trillion. Before Covid-19 hit, the IMF expected 2020 global GDP to grow by 2.5%,…
Total US passenger vehicle sales in 2020 are expected to total 14.5 million, down from 17 million in 2019. Moreover, in 2020 car prices rose 5.1%, SUV prices rose 6.8%, and large SUVs rose a whopping 11.1%! Thus, the average…
US employers shed 140,000 jobs in December. Though the first employment losses since April, this doesn’t suggest an economy heading into recession. These losses were entirely lockdown based, with almost 500,000 losses in Leisure and Hospitality: the California lockdown probably…
The Friday File: Original area codes had either a one or a zero for the second digit. States with one area code had a zero, states with more than one area code had a one. Codes were also designed for…
While housing permits are running at 1.64 million/year, their best level since 9/06, the improvement is uneven. In the Northeast, permits are at 200,000/year and have been flat for decades. In the Midwest, permits are also at 200,000/year and have…
Despite better growth in the US than in almost all other developed nations, counterintuitively the US dollar continues declining in value. It is primarily because the Fed has promised to keep rates where they are for a long time, even…