Econ70

The Friday File: In 1991, the average American bought 40 garments/year. Imports then began flooding the market, prices fell and the number of garments purchased/year steadily rose, peaking at 69 in 2005 with average spending/person reaching $860. With imports now…

While existing home sales are down 5.3% year-over-year, recent sales numbers are really pretty good. Inventory is up 4.5% year-over-year and cash sales are at their lowest level since 12/09. More importantly, non-distressed sales are almost exactly the same as…

Short-term rates will remain at zero until mid-June when the Fed will start raising them. By the end of 2015, expect short-term rates to be between 1.25% and 1.5%. Expect them to rise to between 2.5% and 3% by the…

On 10/5/14 Brazilians go to the polls in a presidential election. While Dilma Rousseff is the incumbent, surprise opposition candidate Marina Silva has my vote. Not only will it be impossible for her to utterly mismanage the Brazilian economy as…

In one of the dumbest economic announcements ever, the G-20 group of industrialized and developing nations has agreed to boost global growth by two percentage points over the next five years; from 3.4% to 5.4%. What puzzles me is if…

The Friday File: It costs the US Mint 1.7 cents to produce a penny, 9.4 cents to mint a nickel. As the Mint makes about five billion pennies/year and one billion nickels/year, those overages sum up to a loss of…

Congress’ decision to extend the prohibition on states taxing Internet access through early 2015, stinks. Taxing the Internet is great tax policy because few households will reduce their demand for the Internet because it’s taxed. Inability to avoid taxation is…

With the economy still weak, I expect the key phrase that interest rates will remain as is for “considerable time after the asset purchase program ends” to remain in the Fed’s statement following their two-day meeting this Wednesday. Altering this…