The Friday File: This week, the World Memory Championships are being held. The reigning world champion is American Alex Mullen. He holds the world record for the longest sequence of numbers memorized in an hour at 3,029, cards in an…
As of 2015, there were 13 states that sent more money to Washington than they received in federal spending. The sums include federal salaries, military contracts, Social Security payments, Medicaid, corporate and personal taxes and so on. The biggest loser,…
Shipments of recreational vehicles, towable or motorized, hit a then record 390,000/year in 1978. In the double-dip recession of the early 1980s, they cratered to 108,000. They then slowly rose again, reaching 390,000 in 2006, the peak of the Housing…
OPEC, Russia, and other countries controlling 60% of global crude production have extended their withholding of 1.8 million bbl/day of oil, 2% of output, from 3/31/18 to 12/31/18. The forces at play here are threefold; rising global GDP boosting demand…
Over the weekend, Bitcoin hit $11,780/coin. Bitcoin finished 2016 at $968.23, and YTD is up 1,200%, yes, twelve mindboggling hundred percent. In terms of currency in circulation, the US dollar leads with $1.5 trillion, followed by the euro at $1.2…
The Friday File: Of the 195 nations on Earth, 33% get their name from some older group of persons. For example, France is named after the Franks. 25% are named from an aspect of the land; Costa Rica means “the…
Neither the House or Senate tax plans will meaningfully boost long-run economic growth, but both will substantially boost future deficits and debt. Despite lower corporate taxes, growth will be stymied by a full employment economy, resulting in higher inflation and…
The yield spread between 10-yr and 1-yr Treasuries has shrunk from a post-recession peak of 3.4 percentage points to just 0.70 percentage points. The problem is in prior Fed rate rising cycles, the yield on the 10-yr rose as faster…
The personal savings rate fell to just 3.1% in September, its lowest level since 12/07, the start of the Great Recession. The decline is undoubtedly being caused by record gains in household net worth. As a percent of disposable income,…
By all indications, Mexico just recently entered a recession. Business activity, sales growth, business confidence and industrial production are not only all declining but are in contractionary territory. Worse, equities are down 8% after peaking three months ago and GDP…