The worst recession in Brazil’s history is two years old. Brazil’s GDP declined 3.8% in 2015 and 3.6% in 2016, a decline totaling 7.26%. If you add Brazilian population growth during those years, per capita GDP declined by a whopping…
February’s net job growth was 235,00 and January’s number was revised up 11,000 to 238,000! The unemployment rate declined to 4.7%, the labor force grew by 340,000, Y-o-Y wage growth rose from 2.6% to 2.8%, those working part-time involuntarily declined…
The Friday File: After controlling for ethnicity, age, socioeconomic factors and so on, volunteers were better able to match up names of people to their pictures than chance. In an example, with four photos and four names, volunteers got the…
On 3/1/17, the current economic expansion entered its 93rd month, making it the third longest in US history. Heretofore, that title went to the 92 month long, 1982-1990 Morning-in-America recovery. The longest, the 1991-2001 10-year Tech Boom recovery. If this…
It took just 24 days for the Dow Jones Industrial Average to go from 20000 to 21000. That tied the record for the fastest 1000-point rise set on 5/3/99 when the DJIA surpassed 11000. That was a rise of 10%,…
As of 1/31/17, the partner at an accounting-firm heading up an audit of a US public firm is public information. As expected, auditors fought against this rule mightily. Can you say Enron, Worldcom and Bernie Madoff? This increased accountability should…
With markets now showing a 90% chance of a rate rise in nine days, only a torrent of dreadful data will hold back the Fed. Survey data show solid gains in consumer and small business optimism, unemployment is nearing the…
The Friday File: While getting there may be very hard, the technological challenges significant, and the risk huge – to say the least – asteroid mining may be amazingly lucrative. In the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter there are…
5% of the US workforce, or 8 million people, is undocumented, of which 92% are between the ages of 18 and 64, compared to 60% of the US-born population. In agriculture, 17% of the workforce is undocumented, followed by construction…
While raising rates is always risky, the Fed might wish to act soon. Credit spreads have narrowed to their lowest point in years, real interest rates are almost back where they were before the Trump election victory, and most financial…