Econ70

The Friday File: Using Walmart grocery prices as a benchmark, the most expensive grocery store is Whole Foods, it’s 39.4% more expensive. Vons is 26.6% more costly, Albertson’s is 24.8% higher, Publix 20.3%, Kroger 14.8%, Meijer 9.9%, Safeway 8.8%, and…

In 1930, John Maynard Keynes, one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, speculated that by 2030 technological progress would be so profound that a 15-hour workweek would be sufficient to satisfy our needs. While productivity skyrocketed and incomes…

While not data points, newspaper headlines like “Real Estate Agents Quit as Housing Market Slouches,” “Retailers Cut Prices to Lure Struggling Shoppers,” and “Gap in Profits, Worker Pay Widens” suggest consumers are hurting. Here’s the supporting data. Adjusted for inflation…

Over the last year real consumer spending has risen 2.1%, which is slightly below the past decade’s average. The problem is personal income; over the past year it hasn’t grown. What’s propped up spending is the equities melt-up and a…

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…