Earlier today, the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to Americans Robert Wilson and Paul Milgrom, both professors at Stanford for their work in improving and designing auctions; a branch of game theory made famous by John (A Beautiful…
The Friday File: Last month, a team of wave engineers determined that Brazilian big wave surfer Maya Gabeira, assisted by her tow-partner Sebastian Steudner, who was sea-dooing at 50 mph while slinging her onto the lip of the giant wave,…
Since 1977, and especially since the mid-1990s, states have steadily raised the age for which a child must sit in a car safety seat. These laws have saved 60 lives/year. So few because seatbelts are as safe as child car…
The delinquency rate for mortgages on one-to-four-unit residential properties, including loans in forbearance if a payment was not made, jumped from 4.36% in 20Q1 to 8.22% in 20Q2. This is the biggest quarterly jump ever and 8.22% is the highest…
In 2019, median family income was $58,600. With less than a HS diploma it was $30,800; with a HS diploma it was $45,800; with some college it was $51,200; and with a college degree it was $95,700. Median income for…
While 661,000 jobs were created in September, that’s way down from 4.8 million in June, 1.7 million in July, and even 1.5 million in August. The trend is troubling. We’ve only made up 51.5% of lost jobs, leaving us 10.7…
The Friday File: Winners of this year’s Nobel Prizes, which will be announced next week, will be getting 10% more prize money. Each of the six prizes will come with 10 million Swedish Krona (SEK), $1.1 million. Initially, the prizes…
New housing, and thus existing housing, has become increasingly more expensive because of burdensome land use regulations, increasingly costly building codes, a labor shortage, and higher input costs. Another rarely mentioned reason is industry consolidation. The share of homes built…
The number of ex-servicepersons in the US is 18 million, or 7% of the adult population. In the House of Representatives, it is 18%, and it is 19% in the Senate. While vastly overrepresented, this is a far cry from…
The number of applications to start a new business fell from 27,000/week to 18,000/week during the second half of March and April. By the end of May, applications had fully recovered but they kept rising and peaked in early July…