The Bowtie Economist's Daily Dose of 70-Word Wisdom

Last month the median existing home sales price was $228,700, way up from the cyclical low of $154,600 in 1/12, and less than one-percent below the all-time high of $230,400 set in 7/06, almost nine years ago. While there’s a…

The Friday File: The percentage of employees testing positive for drug use in 2014 was 3.9%, up from 3.7% in 2013. Prior to 2013, drug use had declined nearly every year from a high of 13.6% in 1988 to a…

Producer prices jumped 0.5% last month, due mainly to rising gasoline prices, but the 56.4% rise in chicken egg prices, the largest increase since at least 1937, helped. To date, 47 million chickens have been killed due to Avian Bird…

At today’s news conference following a meeting of the interest rate setting FOMC, Chairwoman Yellen was clear about three things. Rates will start rising later this year (my bet remains 9/17/15), rates will rise by one percentage point every 12…

With Anthem trying to buy CIGNA, UnitedHealth wanting to takeover Aetna, while Aetna looks to buy Humana, frenzied healthcare consolidation has arrived. Insures are bulking up to battle increasingly large hospital chains who want to renegotiate discounts to offset lower…

Today is the 800-year anniversary of the Magna Carta. It is a document which inspired the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, and other than English, is Great Britain’s greatest export. The Magna Carta didn’t create democracy,…

The Friday File: The lowest grossing movie in history is Zyzzyz Road, which grossed a total of $30, followed closely by Storage 24, which grossed $72. The biggest box office bomb ever: 47 Ronin, which lost a cool $150 million…

Residential construction employment rose by 8,500 in May and by 149,000 over the past year. The steepest annual wage growth among construction workers was for heavy and civil engineering construction at 5.1%, next came residential building at 4.8%. Moreover, the…

May’s seasonally adjusted annual sales rate of 17.8 million vehicles, the best since 7/05, was terrific! Moreover, the average sales price was $33,363 a rise of 4.3% since 5/14. Fewer fleet sales helped, but low gas prices caused elevated truck…

After reaching a high of 121.9 million in November 2007, the ranks of the full-time employed plummeted to a cyclical low of 111.0 million in October 2009, a loss of 10.7 million jobs. Today, the number of full-time workers is…