Econ70

The number of spam and spoof calls received by Americans has risen from 3.7% of all calls in 2017, or 100 calls/person, to 29.2% in 2018, and is expected to reach half of all calls by year end 2019. At…

There were 263,000 new jobs created in April, with all sectors but retail gaining. This strong growth is more proof of a solid economic rebound after a tough start to 2019. While pay rose 3.2% Y-o-Y, wage increases have been…

The Friday File: The superhero movie Avengers: Endgame grossed an amazing $1.2 billion in its first five days of release; $350 million came from the US and Canada. Avengers is already the 18th highest global grossing movie and could become…

With Lyft now public and Uber following soon, we know both have lost about $11 billion since 2009, with no end in sight to losses as they reduce fares to gain share. But brutal competition makes ride hailing a commodity…

During the brief economic downturn late last year, bond yields fell along with equities because there was fear the economy was slowing, corporate profits were weakening, and inflation was expected to fade. Now, the stock market is at a record…

In 2005, sales of drop-tops peaked at 344,000, 2% of sales. During the recession sales collapsed and haven’t recovered. In 2014, sales were 124,000 and are on pace to hit just 86,000 this year, half-a-percent of total vehicle sales. Sales…

GDP 19Q1 GDP came in at a remarkably strong 3.2%; don’t be deceived. Growth was pushed up by an unsustainable surge in inventories, a huge one-time jump in state and local government spending, and a drop in imports precipitated by…

The Friday File: As of today, James Holzhauer has won 17 straight regular Jeopardy! games and in the process has amassed a staggering $1,275,587. He holds the top seven single-game winnings records, the highest being $131,127. At $60,000, he holds…

In 2005, the share of the labor force working in non-standard arrangements was 10.9%. In 2017, despite the “sharing economy” the percentage declined to 10.1%! Within non-standard arrangements, the percentage of independent contractors fell from 7.4% to 6.9%, on-call workers…

Over the past few decades new firm creation has declined, as have job gains attributable to new firms. Similarly, profit margins have risen, especially for the top 10% of global firms. Why? A substantial decline in knowledge diffusion from new,…