Econ70

Russia and Ukraine produce 25% of world wheat and 30% of exports. While last year’s crop has already been mostly exported, the bigger issue is the 2022 crop. If farmers can’t harvest and ship already planted production, global wheat prices…

2022 will be the 4th time baseball has lost games due to a work stoppage. While average attendance/game declined in strike-shortened 1972 and 1981 it quickly recovered. However, it took 12 years to surpass the average attendance record of 31,256/game…

In 2/20, pre-Covid-19, real per capita personal income was $45,453. It then bounced wildly due to repeated stimulus checks and other expansionary fiscal policies peaking at $57,597 in 3/21. It’s since declined every month but one and is now $46,018,…

Russia currently produces 10 million/bbl of oil/day, about 10% of world production, making it the world’s third largest producer and the second largest exporter. Fear of those supplies being disrupted is causing oil prices to gyrate. Roughly speaking, every $10…

The Friday File: In the 1960s, it cost NASA about $6,000/kg to launch a spacecraft into orbit. It cost the Soviets about $8,000 to do the same. Through 2005, no reduction in prices was observed. Since then, however, they have…

While US-Russia trade outside of commodities is trivial, Russia’s Ukraine invasion will slightly boost US inflation as commodity prices in general and energy prices in particular rise on fears of delivery disruptions. This will also result in slightly slower growth…

Over the past year, house prices have risen a whopping 18.8%, due largely to Covid-19 and the WFH phenomenon. To wit, over the past 12 months the largest house price gains have been in warm weather cities like Phoenix, Tampa,…

Dating back to 2012, the Fed has correctly predicted the fed funds rate, a rate they literally control, 37% of the time, core inflation 29% of the time, unemployment 24%, and Real GDP growth 17%. Moreover, the Fed is consistently…

Generally, buying a commodity today is less costly than agreeing today to buy for future delivery because of storage costs and risk. Sometimes, however, the current commodity price exceeds the cost of buying it today for future delivery. This describes…