The population of US counties that include large metropolitan cities grew just 0.7% between 7/13 and 7/14, down 0.9% Y-o-Y. Suburbs of the large metro areas grew by 1.2%, up from 1.1% Y-o-Y. The exurbs, (the suburbs of the suburbs)…
Sales of vacation homes are skyrocketing. Last year a record 1.13 million vacation properties sold, an amazing 21% of all sales and up 57.4% from 2013! Part of this is due to Boomers buying second homes to eventually retire to,…
The Fed wants to raise short-term rates, and the three most important labor market variables they’re looking at are payroll growth, the unemployment rate and the change in average hourly earnings. Last Friday’s employment report offered no good news. Payroll…
The Friday File: In the unlikely event of a zombie invasion, avoid northeastern Pennsylvania at all costs as it’s close to big cities where the outbreak is likely to start. Bakersfield is also bad, it’s close to LA, SF and…
While Q1 corporate profit growth will likely be flat due to bad weather, a strong dollar and weak exports, global growth and oil prices, corporate profits have been lackluster for some time. Following a Great Recession annualized low of $674.1…
While it’s obvious to all that the public debt, world population, and numbers of known galaxies, solar panels, divorces, live births, live economists all continually increase, there appears no concomitant decrease in anything. This goes against the plethora of conservation…
With the unemployment rate at 5.5% and the CPI at -0.1%, the Misery Index, the sum of the two numbers, is just 5.4%, its lowest level since April 1959, and slightly less than a quarter of its all-time high of…
Six and a half years into Quantitative Easing, GDP and inflation are higher than they would otherwise have been and feared asset bubbles have not generally materialized. However, stock and bond prices have risen, boosting wealth inequality, but the improved…
The Friday File: While school closures for bad weather may hurt student achievement, absenteeism profoundly hurts achievement. Each one-day increase in absenteeism lowers math scores by 5% of a standard deviation! Schools deal with school-wide closures by adding days or…
On the plus side, job growth continues to look very strong and inflation rates appear to be no longer falling. But business investment has been declining for six months and retail sales have been slumping for three. This suggests a…