Econ70

The Friday File: American Pharoah, the 2015 winner of the 141st running of the Kentucky Derby, the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978, and one of only 12 such winners, is popular. The now six-year-old stallion has impregnated…

While the Fed didn’t raise rates in the meeting that concluded yesterday, the big news is the Fed won’t overreact (which means raise rates much faster) if inflation modestly exceeds 2%. That is, the Fed remains on track to raise…

The government argues consumers will be hurt by an AT&T/Time Warner merger because competition will decline as AT&T will exercise monopoly control over content such as HBO, CNN, Turner, etc. Is the government kidding? Almost half of Americans get their…

Despite being on its heels for ages, inflation is strengthening. Y-o-Y economy-wide inflation ticked up to 1.85% in 18Q1, a hairsbreadth away from its four-year peak of 1.96% registered in 17Q1. In addition, it’s meaningfully declined only once since 15Q3.…

Real GDP in 18Q1 grew at an annualized rate of 2.3%, beating expectations of 2%. This was the best Q1 growth since 2015 and keeps us on track for growth of at least 2.75% in 2018. It slid from 2.9%…

The Friday File: Earlier this week, the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a baby boy who is fifth in line to the British throne. The cost for the royal birth, in the top-notch Lindo Wing of St. Mary’s Hospital…

Recent tax reform has, among other things, reduced the tax advantages of charitable giving. Thus, such giving is expected to decline by about 4% from $390 billion/year to about $375 billion/year. The top 1% of taxpayers will be generally less…

While interest rates have been profoundly low until quite recently, the winds of change are coming. The Fed is beginning to meaningfully reduce its balance sheet, and large federal deficits are starting to appear, both of which will increase the…

March housing starts were up 1.9% M-o-M, and 10.9% Y-o-Y, but single-family starts fell 3.7% M-o-M and rose just 5.2% Y-o-Y. The recent rise in starts is all due to multifamily activity! Since 10/16, single-family starts have risen marginally. However,…

The IMF estimates advanced economies will grow 2.5% in 2018 and 2.2% in 2019, up half a point each from their 10/17 report. US growth was boosted from 2.3% to 2.9% this year and 1.9% to 2.7% for 2019 due…