In 1990, when the Baby Boomers median age was 35, they owned 21% of the nation’s wealth. In 2008, when Generation Xers median age was 35, they owned 9% of the nation’s wealth. While Millennials median age will not hit 35 until 2023, their share of the nation’s wealth will have to triple from its … [Read more...]

The share price of Tesla has more than tripled since the end of July and Tesla is now the world’s second most valuable automaker at $160 billion, behind Toyota at $200 billion. The only problem: it’s a consistent money loser. It has never made an annual profit, ever, and 19Q3 was only the fifth … [Read more...]

Medical Money From 1998-2017, the cost of medical services doubled, and hospital services tripled; the CPI rose by just 50%. Why? Healthcare bills are paid by third parties like insurance companies and the government. Consumers have no incentive to monitor prices or be cost-conscious. Conversely, … [Read more...]

In 2019, US sales of autos and light trucks totaled 16.9 million. 2019 is the first year since 2014, when sales were 16.5 million, that auto sales fell below 17 million. Sales peaked in 2016 at 17.5 million and have been slowly declining since. As for the world’s largest car market, China, 2019 … [Read more...]

While the US and Chinese economies look to be stabilizing and even strengthening, the same cannot be said for Europe. Business activity there is growing at its slowest rate since 2013. Manufacturing activity is in recession and is steadily deteriorating, luckily the service sector is doing … [Read more...]

This past Sunday, former Fed Chairman extraordinaire Paul Volker died. During his helm (1979-1987), he unequivocally changed economic history. He not only fought relentlessly for central bank independence but slayed runaway 1970s inflation. Because of the latter, he was one of the most unpopular … [Read more...]

Just 9.8% of Americans changed their residence between 2018 and 2019, the lowest percentage since such record keeping began in 1947/48! This new low is occurring amidst the weakest population growth on record, limited immigration and an aging society. Most troubling, however, just 20% of those … [Read more...]

Prior to slapping tariffs on China, US tariff revenues were $3 billion/month. They’re now $7 billion/month; an increase of around $50 billion/year or 0.25% of GDP. Thus, GDP has been reduced by at least this much, and realistically much more because some purchases are simply not made and we’re … [Read more...]

Earlier this morning, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to a trio of economists, Abhijit Banerjee and his wife Esther Duflo (only the second woman to win an Economics Nobel and the youngest recipient ever at 46) both from MIT, and Michael Kremer of Harvard. They won the award for their … [Read more...]

From 1980-2007, US savings rates declined from about 10% to 2.5%. They have since risen and are now 8.1%. Unsurprisingly, savings rose after the recession as households rebuilt wealth. Rates may also be up due to rising economic uncertainty. But savings rates jumped dramatically after the Trump tax … [Read more...]