Econ70

Debt Deduction

05/03/2017

We know 70% of households don’t itemize deductions, that there are 117 million households, and that 34% of all households (42 million) rent. Assuming all renters take the standard deduction, that means 40 million owner households take the standard deduction…

Read More

Elliot on NPR’s Marketplace 5/3/17 – Just 34 percent of homes have regained pre-recession values. Is that a bad thing?

05/03/2017

Elliot talks with Marketplace’s Annie Baxter about the housing market recovery on 5/3/17. Listen to the interview.

Read More

Airline Altercation

05/02/2017

Last year 700 million passengers flew in the US and 40,600 were involuntarily bumped, meaning 0.0058% of all passengers were re-accommodated. That’s down from 0.0063% in 2015 when 43,700 passengers were involuntarily bumped out of 690 million. While it’s a…

Read More

Glum Growth

05/01/2017

While auto sales chipped 0.45 of a percent off 0.7% 17Q1 GDP growth, residential construction added 0.50 a percentage point. Personal spending was surprisingly weak and deserves watching, but should improve. Fortunately, corporate investment boosted GDP by 0.49 of a…

Read More

Home sales up: High demand, low inventory driving market

04/30/2017

Comments from Dr. Eisenberg’s 2014 study commissioned by the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Massachusetts lend insight on housing predictions for Worcester County, MA. Read more here.

Read More

High Storage Levels, Low Oil Prices

04/29/2017

After almost reaching $55 per barrel (bbl), oil prices are again falling. What makes this decline particularly baffling is that in late 2016, after seeing prices languish for two years, the Organization of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC) announced that it,…

Read More

Lousy Luck

04/28/2017

The Friday File: Total per capita gambling losses, defined as losses minus winnings, experienced by Americans are about $375/person, good enough for 5th highest in the world. In fourth place is Finland, where gambling losses are about $400/person. In third…

Read More

Government Growth

04/27/2017

In 16Q3 and in 16Q4, the combined addition to real US GDP by all levels of government (federal, state and local) was 0.07 and 0.06 of a percentage point respectively. That was weak. Government spending should consistently contribute roughly 0.40…

Read More

Trump Taxes

04/26/2017

President Trump has boldly proposed cutting the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 15%, lower than any Republican plan circulating on Capitol Hill. Assuming no offsetting tax increases, this will raise the debt by easily $2.2 trillion over a…

Read More

Brexit Bargaining

04/25/2017

The British pound jumped 2.3% following the announcement of a snap June election. Presently, the Hard Brexiteers (HBs), those calling for a total break with the EU without any trade pact, have enough seats in Parliament to limit PM May’s…

Read More

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives