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The good: the index of leading economic indicators rose, as did retail sales, consumer sentiment, and housing permits. The bad: Europe is now officially in recession, first-time unemployment claims rose, manufacturing activity declined, inflation as measured four different ways is…
The Friday File: In 2011, 1.15 billion watches sold for $30 billion. China sold the most, almost 700 million pieces, and at an average price of $2/watch; their industry was worth $1.5 billion. By contrast, the average price of the…
The interest rate setting Federal Reserve Open Market Committee always includes the seven Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the President of the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) NY. The remaining four members rotate among the Presidents of the other…
Forcing Congress to obtain health insurance through exchanges is bad policy. Because they get excellent coverage, Congress would push for top-flight exchange healthcare. This would encourage employers to drop their plans because their employees could get great congressional quality subsidized…
In Q1 2013, total household indebtedness fell to $11.23 trillion, 1% lower than in Q4 2012 and way down from the peak of $12.68 trillion in Q3 2008. Mortgage debt now stands at $7.93 trillion, HELOCs are at $522 billion,…
Retail sales jumped 0.1% in April and while not great, it beats the 0.5% decline in March! Moreover, it shows that consumers are spending despite the sequester and the payroll tax increase. And a key reason was the huge 3.5%…
The Friday File: Female models like Heidi Klum and Bar Rafaeli make millions annually, yet there isn’t even one famous male model. I think this is this because women spend much more on fashion and cosmetics than men. Moreover, they…
Part of the reason employment growth is so weak is that despite sizable increases in residential construction spending, increases in construction employment have been MIA. From April 2012 to April 2013, residential construction put-in-place increased from $249 billion to $295…
In 2011, 4.1 million women gave birth, 36% of which were unmarried, up from 31% in 2005. 57% of women without a high-school degree, 49% of women with a high-school diploma, 40% of women with some college and 8.8% of…
The take-away message from the Reinhart-Rogoff error is that research mistakes happen, that higher debt levels are correlated with slower GDP growth, and that there is no debt threshold, 90% or otherwise, above which growth dramatically collapses. Rather, as the…