At present, there are 240 million cars and light trucks in the USA, most of which are parked 23 hours a day or more. This idleness makes owning and driving a car expensive. If cars could just be used more,…
The FY 2016 budget deficit, which ends next month, will rise to $590 billion, or 3.2% of GDP, up from $438 billion or 2.5% of GDP in FY2015, the lowest level since 2007. The deficit is up because revenues will…
The Friday File: Using a combination of variables including sales of food, drink, lodging and for the unlucky, medical care, economists estimate that the 2,500 global locations with high-quality waves sought out by surfers generate about $20 million/year each or…
While single-family starts are up 11% YTD and single-family permits are up 7.2% YTD, multifamily starts are down 1% and multifamily permits are down 17%, suggesting multifamily activity has peaked. Separately, new home sales are strengthening. The 727,000 seasonally-adjusted annual…
Obamacare healthcare exchanges suffer from mispriced insurance. The law requires insurance for the elderly be no more than three times as costly as insurance for the young. But, the elderly consume way more healthcare than the young. This mispricing discourages…
To improve employment outcomes, many states are prohibiting employers from inquiring about the criminal histories of job applicants prior to job offers. While well intended, the unintended consequence of this is that the probability of being employed fell 5.1% for…
In 16Q2, 12.1% of homes with a mortgage were underwater, down from 14.4% a year ago and down from the negative equity peak of an astonishing 31.4% in 12Q1. On average, 19.4% of homes valued in the bottom third of…
The Friday File: While Olympic gold medal winners receive $25,000, silver medalists $15,000 and bronze winners $10,000, courtesy of the US Olympic Committee, they pay income tax on those winnings. Now our braindead Congress wants to make those awards tax…
Annual US healthcare spending is $8,713/person, by far the highest in the world. Switzerland comes next at $6,325/person, followed by Norway at $5,852/person. Canada is 10th at $4,351/person, less than half the US total. Among developed nations, Korea spends the…
January through June 2016 GDP growth was a dismal 1% on an annualized basis. A key culprit, inventories sliced 1.2 percentage points off GDP in Q2 and have now subtracted from GDP growth for 5 straight quarters, the first time…