Econ70

After a review of 16,000 megaprojects including skyscrapers, airports, museums, concert halls, nuclear reactors, roads, and hydroelectric dams across 136 nations, data show 47.9% are delivered on budget, 8.5% are delivered on budget and on time, and 0.5% are delivered…

January net payrolls rose by a staggering 517,000, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, its lowest level since 5/69. Moreover, the average workweek, which had been steadily falling since peaking at 35 hours in 1/21, shot up from 34.4…

The Friday File: 27-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin recently won her 83rd and 84th World Cup victories in her illustrious career. In the process, she broke the women’s record set by fellow American Lindsey Vonn, who retired at 34. With three more…

Ten Senate Republicans have recently introduced legislation giving priority to debt service, salaries for troops, and Social Security. While the Treasury probably can prioritize payments in this fashion and thus avoid defaulting, this still creates very large payment delays. Given…

On 2/1/23, the Fed, unsurprisingly, raised rates 25bps. Moreover, they strongly suggested two more hikes of 25bps are in store and that there will be no rate cuts in 2023. Markets rallied, believing not only that the Fed won’t raise…

Existing home sales fell 1.5% M-o-M in December, the 11th straight monthly decline, and declined to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of just 4.02 million. Y-o-Y sales fell 17.8% Y-o-Y to 5.03 million. Fortunately, the sales decline is likely over.…

The U.S. economy grew 2.9% in 22Q4, down slightly from 3.2% in 22Q3. In 2022, GDP grew 1%, a pleasant surprise given negative growth in 22H1. However, stripping out inventory changes, net trade, and government spending to get at the…

The Friday File: While the first text message was sent on 12/3/92, it took until 2005 for the number of SMS/MMS messages sent in the U.S. to exceed 100 billion, probably because they cost $0.10/text. Then they became free, and…

If the debt limit is not increased, the amount of tax increases or spending cuts required to stay under the existing debt limit this year would be $1.5 trillion and would be $14 trillion over the next decade. Relatedly, in…

The Index of Leading Economic indicators fell again in December, this time by 1%, the tenth consecutive monthly decline, with the monthly declines generally worsening over time. Moreover, with data going back to 1970, the last seven times the index…