The Friday File: Last week, Josh Kerr ran a 3:42.66 mile breaking the previous mark of 3:43.13 seconds, set in 1999, by a gargantuan almost half second! During this historic race Kerr ran at an average speed of 15.51 MPH.…
Since 1950, 17 times including this year, the S&P 500 has been up 5%-10% at midyear. The average return during the second half of the year has been 6.6% (better than the post-1949 average of 4.9%) and the median has…
Job growth over the past year has been very weak, yet initial jobless claims have been surprisingly low for some time. While this may indicate a labor market that’s fine, I’m suspicious. I suspect layoffs are not occurring in manufacturing,…
June housing starts blew the proverbial roof off. Headline starts surged 19% M-o-M to 1.427 million annualized units. Regrettably, single-family starts slid 0.2%, continuing their slow, steady 2.5-year deterioration, while the lumpy, noisy, and volatile multifamily sector saw starts soar…
Boomers, those currently between 62-80 years-old, perhaps surprisingly comprise the largest share of US home buyers at 42%. In part, it’s because they (and those over 80) control $110 trillion or about 60% of all U.S. household wealth. With that…
The Friday File: For almost 20 years, the average in Brown University’s Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory in-class midterm was 65-80. This year it was take-home; the average was 96. Suspecting AI cheating, the same professor who taught the…
June M-o-M retail sales rose solidly at 0.2% with May revised upwards, weekly first-time unemployment claims remain very low at 208,000, the July Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index soared to 41.4, and the Empire State Manufacturing Index jumped to 15.6. Add…
While AI spending is boosting wages and driving massive investment in plant and equipment, it may, paradoxically, be reducing GDP growth. This is because AI spending is probably occurring much more quickly that it should be, like the Housing Boom.…
June existing home sales slipped to a disappointing 4.09 million annual rate. The combination of high rates and prices finds housing affordability consistently 30% below the average of the last several decades. The income needed to qualify for a starter…
The Ukrainian military has not only industrialized and transformed drone warfare on the battlefield, thereby undermining some assumptions behind traditional strategy, it’s also altered the notion of strategic depth. If Ukraine’s military can inflict damage deep inside Russia, the world’s…