Econ70

While inventory of homes is low, commonly used measures such as months of inventory or number of units for sale, severely underestimate the shortage. The number of units for sale divided by the number of households has been flat at…

The unambiguous upside to quantitative easing is that in 2015, the Fed sent $97.8 billion in profits to the Treasury, surpassing last year’s record of $96.9 billion. These remittances have grown as the Fed’s portfolio of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities…

Q4/15 GDP growth was recently revised up to 1.4%. The data continue to show an economy being driven primarily by consumer spending on services and secondarily by housing. It’s being held back by business investment, manufacturing, energy, bloated inventories and…

The Friday file: In the 1960s, 8.8% of songs in the Billboard Hot 100 had a one word title. That jumped to 9.7% in the 70s, 11.1% in the 80s, 13.2% in the 90s, 19.9% in the 00s and 23.2%…

Financial conditions are much better than they were just weeks ago. Equities are up, yield spreads are down, the dollar has weakened and the VIX or “fear gauge” is at its lowest level since August. Risk is suddenly appealing. Should…

Mortgage equity withdrawal as a percentage of disposable personal income peaked at 6% in 1985. It then steadily declined, bottoming out at 0% in 1994. It then reversed direction, peaking at 9% during the three years ending June 2006, an…

Since the end of WWII, the average recession has lasted 11.1 months and the average recovery, 58.4 months. The Great Recession was 18 months, the longest recession since 1929. The recovery, now in its 81th month, is the 4th longest…

This past week, for the 54th week in a row, fewer than 300,000 persons sought new unemployment benefits, the best such streak since the 17-month period ending 1/5/74! The current streak just surpassed the 50 week dotcom sub 300,000 streak…

The Friday File: When looking to hire/marry the best candidate from a large pool, the solution is to interview and reject the first 36.8% of all candidates and then accept the next candidate that is better than any interviewed. Doing…