The current Covid-19 surge in Hong Kong and in China is a potential supply-chain disaster. China’s vaccines offer very limited protection against Omicron, few persons have natural immunity due to China’s increasingly outdated zero-tolerance policy, and China has few hospital…
The Friday File: For the week ending 2/23/22, the most popular game was Candy Crush Saga with 40% of persons having played it, including 48% of women and 33% of men. Angry Birds follows at 33%, with 35% of men…
54% of Americans will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day today and will in the process spend $5.87 billion. 80% of celebrants will wear green, 34% will make a special dinner, and 26% will decorate their home or office. While St. Patrick’s…
War has traditionally worsened inflation as military demands are added to domestic ones, sanctions, embargoes, and bombs worsen supply chains, and as conflicts are often financed by printing money. While some of these effects are all but guaranteed, to date…
GDP growth is the result of increases in the labor force and improvements in labor productivity. Regrettably, the pool of new job entrants has been declining dramatically of late. The average annualized growth in the working age population went from…
The number of job openings fell to 11.3 million in January from 11.4 million in December, the December number was an all-time high. Pre-Covid-19, the number was just 7 million. Relatedly, the quit rate is now 2.8%/month, down slightly from…
The Friday File: With the price of nickel recently quintupling in value to $100,000/metric ton, a nickel is now worth about 16 cents in metal or “melt” value. Each nickel weighs five grams and contains 1.25 grams of nickel, worth…
While the Russian invasion of Ukraine is already raising inflationary pressures due to rising prices for a broad range of commodities including oil and wheat, long-term rates have counterintuitively fallen since the war began. This is because of a massive…
The Fed will raise rates a quarter point in the next week, the European Central Bank will move much slower. The EU economy was already meaningfully weaker than the US before Russia’s invasion. The US is the world’s #1 oil…
The last time WTI oil exceeded $130/bbl, like it almost does now, was between 5/21/08 when it rose to $131.58/bbl and 7/21/08 when it fell to $131.43, peaking on 7/14/08 at $145.16/bbl. That resulted in gasoline peaking at $4.11/gallon on…